Machine Gun Blues
by strayphoenix
Summary: "I like a dame who follows directions and looks damn good doing it," he says with a grin, leaning forward to whisper in her ear. "Almost like you ain't scared of me." Her heart races when he dips his head and kisses her pulse point. "Maybe I'm not scared of you," she says. "Then maybe you're in the wrong line of work, doll. Ever consider a life of crime?" A Bonnie & Clyde AU.
1. Prologue

****Machine Gun Blues****

a collaboration between _edwardandbella4evah_ and _strayphoenix_

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><p><strong>Ariel's Note:<strong> Heeey guys. Brand spanking new fanfiction here. But I'm afraid this isn't my baby, but Stray's. I'm just it's adoptive mother, WHO LOVES IT LIKE HER OWN. Short prologue is short, but don't fret my pretties. We have about 11 chapters already written up haha. SO NO YEAR LONG HIATUSES ANYTIME SOON. I would like to take time to thank Stray for being amazeballs and for giving ya'all this fantabulous idea. It's all her fault, pt. 2. I hope you all enjoy!

**Stray's Note**: Ariel is far too kind. I wouldn't have ever gotten up off my ass to write this fic, which I've had an outline of sitting on my computer for the last three years, if she hadn't agreed to help me write it. I wouldn't have gotten the idea if it wasn't for the wonderful art of the wonderfully talented Keytaro and TDI-Exile on deviantart, so thanks to them too! This story is going to be a hell of a ride and it's been a hell of a long time in the making, so I hope you all have as much fun reading it as we have writing it. Happy reading!

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><p><em>You've read the story of Jesse James<em>

_Of how he lived and died;_

_ If you're still in need_

_ Of something to read,_

_Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde._

-Bonnie Parker

* * *

><p>The mass of bodies outside the institution is so massive, she needs the muscle from the hospital to make her way to the door. The reporters clamor around her car, the walkway to the entrance. They all want a statement, they all want to know who she is and what she's doing. She keeps her mouth shut like her husband told her to and lets the doctors and nurses escort her to the front desk.<p>

They shut the front door on a reporter's outstretched pencil and notepad.

The woman takes off her hat, a wide brimmed thing that defended her against the Texas sun, and says to the front desk, "I'm here to pick up my sister."

"I wouldn't have guessed," the secretary behind the counter says. "Follow Noah down the hall. He'll take you to her."

The orderly named Noah appears, gestures that she follow him.

"I sure hope you have a safe way of getting yourself and your sister out of here," he says.

"Let's make sure she's ready to leave first," the woman says. Noah doesn't reply and instead leads her down the hall, past many doors and empty rooms. She welcomes the eerie silence.

Noah opens a door at the far end of the hallway, facing away from the windows.

"You have a visitor," Noah says into the room, his voice robotic. "See to it that you're on your best behavior." The door clicks behind the two women and they're alone, but the woman in the chair isn't the same girl her sister grew up with.

Bridgette sighs, looking at her sister. Her hair has been cut short, sticking up in many directions. One of the downsides to being locked up in a mental home was their lack of professional hair stylists. Her face is devoid of any color as well and, much more alarming, any emotion. Her sister's lost weight, and she notes that the first thing she'll do upon taking her back home is make her a good meal.

"Sweetie, it's time to go home now," she says slowly, as if talking to a baby rabbit instead of an adult woman. "Mama is waiting for us. She would have come herself, but.." she sighs and trails off.

Her sister doesn't answer. The clamour outside grows louder through the walls themselves.

"Dearest," she says softly, taking her sister's hand. "I know what's written in the papers can't be true. They have their own way of twisting the truth around. Tell me the truth. If you want me to believe you, I need you to tell me what happened"

Still her sister doesn't answer. She squeezes.

"Bonnie? Sweetie?"

No response.

"...Courtney?"

The patient turns to her sister, stiff from months without sunlight. She looks her sister in the eyes, her own betraying nothing, opens her mouth to say something…

Then changes her mind. She turns back to the wall, closing her lips tight.

Outside, someone smashes a bottle against the wall of the asylum.


	2. Dallas

**Dallas, Before**

Courtney Jones wakes up to the sun in her eyes. It's the same way she wakes up every morning, with the damn sun in her damn eyes.

She sits up. The bed is empty. She tosses off the covers, gets in her slippers, and shuffles to the kitchen where she can already hear Justin making himself coffee.

If the definition of a 'bad day' was an 'absolutely normal' one, then Courtney was absolutely already having one of those.

"Morning," Justin greets methodically, reading the paper like he always does when he wakes up. "Did you sleep well?"

"Fine," Courtney responds, going to make her same old breakfast: an english muffin with butter and jam and a glass of orange juice.

"I'm working late tonight, will you make dinner?"

"Yes."

She takes a muffin from the basket by the sink and puts it on a plate, buttering both halves and then spreading jam rigorously. She takes it to the table and starts eating, barely able to keep her eyes open. Justin takes his coffee to go, and steals a bite from her muffin like he does every morning.

"Gotta run, busy day at work. See you tonight," he says, placing a kiss in her hair, putting on his jacket and walking to the door. Courtney sighs, shaking her head.

"And Bonnie," he says at the door. Courtney looks up from her muffin, pausing mid chew.

"Please bring the mail in," he finishes, closing the door behind him.

Courtney's shoulders fall. She slumps over her breakfast plate, very unladylike, and dips her muffin in her orange juice even though it tastes terrible. If only so that something is out of the ordinary.

She goes to get dressed in her room and shuts the blinds, stripping naked and laying out across her sheets with her stash of magazines. She thumbs through all the clothes she wishes she could wear to work—boldly colored short beaded dresses, feathered head pieces, pearls down to her knees, all the latest trends in the big cities—before folding the magazines up again in her bottom drawer and putting a simple cotton dress on.

She brushes her hair out and slips her heels on and starts the walk to the bank.

* * *

><p>It's a simple job, something Justin allows her to do. She sits behind a desk, bids everyone a good day when they walked in, directing them to where they needed to go, and takes phone calls for her boss. Boring, but better than sitting at home all day.<p>

The bell tinkles as she walks in, and she avoids the skeptic looks from the tellers behind the glass as she puts her bag down and takes a seat at her secretarial desk. Courtney doesn't even have a chance to grab her notebook before the phone rings.

"Dallas Bank, Mrs. Jones speaking, how may I direct your call?" she answers.

"_Tell me_," a voice drawls, "_If I wanted to grab some dough from my account, but wanted to avoid a long line, what would be the best time?_"

Courtney purses her lips and taps her pencil for a few moment before deciding.

"At around ten o'clock, I suppose. Everybody will usually be at their jobs, and coming before the lunch rush is crucial if you want to avoid a line."

"_Thanks a bunch, doll. You're really helping me out here._"

She frowns but keeps her voice unwavering. "May I assist you with anything else—Hello?" she asks, but all she hears is the dial tone.

The rest of her morning goes downhill.

A married couple come in to see a bank representative but refuse to talk to Courtney, despite her attempts at being polite. The woman goes so far as to sneer at the ring on Courtney's finger and comment to her husband that she's appalled that this bank would allow a married woman to work instead of tending to her children.

Courtney smiles at her politely but snaps a pencil in two under the desk.

She handles mostly men the remainder of the morning-jobless men trying to get loans to support their families. A large part of those refuse to deal with her either, jealous that she has a job they feel entitled too, and the ones that will talk to her grow bitter and angry very quickly when she has to tell them that she can't direct them to a teller because they don't qualify for loans.

As ten o'clock rolls around, her latest client leaves calling her all sorts of derogatory names because she couldn't lend him the forty dollars he needed. It's early, but Courtney's already out of pencils. She walks to Katie's desk to get more and glowers as the young, single girl chats up a handsome bachelor looking to make a deposit. When Courtney returns to her own desk, another man walks in, pinstriped suit like all the others, with a dark-haired, vaguely Asian woman beside him. They part ways at the door, the slender woman walking to a teller and the man walking right over to her.

He reaches the seat before she does and she takes her own chair with a sigh. As she straightens her face for a polite conversation she knows she isn't going to have, the man says, "Rough morning, eh?"

She hadn't meant for him to notice, but it seems like trying to pretend otherwise would be insulting to both of them.

"Not really your business, sir," she says. "What do you need?"

"You're a feisty one, ain't ya?" he says with a slow grin. "Easy on the eyes, too. I like it," he says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on her desk.

A flush spreads across her cheeks. She can't remember the last time Justin shot her a compliment.

"Did you come here for something?" Courtney asks, crossing her legs under her desk at the ankles. "Or were you hoping to get a shot with me?"

"I ain't an idiot, sweetcheeks. I see the ring on your finger. You belong to someone else."

"I do not belong to anybody," she says tightly. "Especially not my husband." Women, as the magazines said, in the cities or in the countryside, married or not, belonged to themselves.

The gentleman is amused.

"There's plenty of fish in the sea, darlin', and I got a feeling you hooked yourself a dead one. Tell me how such a looker like yourself managed to get hitched so young, huh?"

Her face grows hotter. Its a combination of the attention of those blue eyes and his infuriating tone of voice.

"If I can't help you _professionally_, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," she says. "Or," she adds, glancing over her shoulder at the woman who came in with him, "better yet I tell your wife you're pawing at me under her nose."

He flashes her his hand, still grinning. There's no ring. "Close hon, but no cigar. Though you are sharper than most. What's your name?"

"Sir, _what_ is your business?" she snaps.

He plucks one of her new pencils out of its container and twirls it expertly across his fingers. "I'm here to make a withdrawal, _Mrs_." He says the title with a biting sarcasm. "What's your name?"

Courtney breathes deeply as she pulls out a withdrawal form from her stack of papers and says, as politely as she manages, "Jones. Mrs. Jones. Now, what is your account number so I can direct you to-"

"And your first name?"

This isn't the first asshole she's had to deal with, but he's the most persistent by a long shot. She debates whether or not to answer truthfully for a moment, then decides, _screw it_. "Courtney. Courtney Jones. But everyone calls me Bonnie."

"Why?"

Courtney eyes him. His line of questioning is getting a little too personal, but then again, he cared enough to ask. She straightens up in her seat. "My maiden name is Bons. I'm the youngest of my family and an uncle called me Little Bonnie as a joke at a family reunion. It stuck ever since."

The gentleman sticks the pencil behind his ear, his proud smirk growing softer, more...charming. If such a thing were possible. "Courtney suits you better. A proper dame's name, not a little girl's."

Courtney glances behind her at the woman he came in with who wasn't his wife. She's eyeing the two of them pointedly, impatiently. The man doesn't take notice. It's almost jealousy and Courtney hasn't invoked jealousy in anyone in so long, the sensation is vaguely thrilling.

"Thank you, sir. How about you?" Courtney asks, leaning forward on her own elbows to accent the dip of her chest. A tendril of hair slips from behind her ear and brushes across the desk. "What do you they call you?"

He grins. "That your personal curiosity, sweetcheeks, or are you filling out my form for me?"

Courtney realizes she hasn't written a word down on the form. She reaches for a pencil from the container but he offers her the one he'd been toying with. She takes it from him and as she starts writing, smiles coyly.

"Maybe a little of both."

A gun goes off. Courtney jolts, dropping her pencil and spinning around to the sound. The Asian woman has a revolver in each hand, pointing one at the clerk and one at the people in line behind her.

"Everybody on the ground! Now!"

As she gapes, the nozzle of a gun presses into Courtney's lower back. An arm wraps around her shoulders.

"The name's Duncan Clyde, babydoll," he whispers, hot and heavy in her ear. "And for what it's worth, I'm only kind of sorry about this."


	3. Trigger

Duncan nods to his partner and she rounds up the tellers into a corner. Courtney watches the display, all too aware of the gun pressing into her back.

"What do you want?" she asks.

"I told ya, I'm making a withdrawal," Duncan retorts, prodding her with the gun. "Now, nice and slow, take me to where you keep the dough, and maybe I'll think twice about killing you."

Courtney does as she's told, walking with shaky steps to the safe at the back of the bank. This is what she gets for wanting something out of the ordinary.

"I like a dame who follows directions, and looks damn good doing it," Duncan says with a cocky grin, leaning forward to whisper in her ear as she pulls a key ring from around her neck. "Maybe I can make this worth your while, huh? Give ya a few hundreds? You can get away from yer dead fish hubby, go travel, do whatever suits you best," he offers.

Courtney doesn't dare turn around. The man is clearly insane.

"If you think money solves everything, you're wrong," she says. "My husband is a lawyer and he's going to put you behind bars for this."

He chuckles, low and warm in her ear, and she feels it run the length of her spine. What was she _doing_? The man threatened to kill her; anything between them should have stopped at that moment. And yet…

"You're awfully chatty for a hostage," he says, running the nozzle of the gun from her back to her side in a slow caress. "Almost like you ain't scared of me."

She's watching her own hands shake as she pretends to search through keys. The door requires two keys to open, neither of which she has access to. But if she tells him that, she might be dead before she finishes the sentence. So she stalls.

"Maybe I'm _not _scared of you."

For a second, she thinks he didn't hear her. Then in an instant, he grabs her by her shoulders and spins her around, presses her up against the iron door with his weight. His face is inches from hers, amused.

She barely hears him over the drumming in her ears when he dips his head and kisses her pulse point. "Then maybe you're in the wrong line of work, doll. Ever consider a life of crime?"

He sucks on the spot and Courtney's eyes flutter to the back of her head as she drops her ring of keys with a clatter. She feels every which part of him pressing into every part of her and it takes every single fiber of her willpower not to moan. Her common sense is telling her to answer no, but God how she wants to say yes if it means more of this.

She bites her tongue and shakes her head. "I can't."

"Not even for a day, hm?" he asks against her throat, tugging at the neckline of her dress suggestively. "Not even for a night?"

"What's stopping you from killing me right now?" she asks, warmth pooling in her stomach.

"Be a shame to ruin such a pretty thing," he murmurs. "Besides, yer doing what I say. I like it when dames do what I say."

Duncan pulls back and looks her right in the eyes, his own glinting. "So whaddaya say?"

Courtney breathes deep. She finds her sense. "Go to hell."

Instead of the bullet she anticipates, Duncan places his mouth on hers, kissing her fiercely.

Courtney had kissed Justin less than ten total times in her life, and half of those were for show. Duncan's kisses were _not_ for show. The electricity between them overrides her initial shock and when she finally kisses him back, he pulls away, smirking.

"Yer missing out Peaches, because I have myself a mighty trigger finger," he whispers mischievously. Then, licking the shell of her ear, adds, "And I don't mean for a gun."

He lets go of Courtney and sticks two fingers inside his mouth before letting out a shrill whistle. Courtney jumps and his partner appears with both safe keys, tossing one to him. Duncan shoves Courtney out of the way as he unlocks the door and she catches herself painfully on her palms. She turns to stare at the door, not shaking anymore, not sure she can crawl away faster than he can loot the vault.

She doesn't get the chance to try. They're out within the minute. Duncan tips his hat at her with a grin, laden down with bags of cash. "Always a pleasure dealing with a pretty lady, Dollface."

"_Bonnie_," she corrects unevenly.

Before he disappears beyond the turn of the hallway, he calls, "Catch ya on the flip side, _Courtney_."


	4. Clippings

In the aftermath, the newspapers interview Courtney about her experience. At least half of the questions ask her if she still feels safe at the bank or would she rather return to being a housewife. She answers the questions semi-politely and the bank manager promises to tighten security but doesn't really do much other than hire a police officer to watch the front door.

Justin is furious.

"You spoke to him? Why? Why would you do such a _stupid _thing?"

"I don't know," she mumbles. "I was scared."

"Really? That's your excuse for why you helped him?"

"I didn't _help _him with anything, Justin," she says from the kitchen as she makes dinner. "I was terrified so I did what he asked so he wouldn't shoot me. You weren't there. You wouldn't understand."

"I should have never let you work there," he says. "You should hand in your resignation first thing tomorrow and stay home."

"It won't happen again, Honey, I promise," she insists, turning from her aggressive salting of the pasta to face Justin. "It was just a one time thing."

"This sort of thing is never a one time thing," he says, coming into the kitchen and standing by the ice box with his arms crossed. "Your job is putting you in unnecessary danger. I want you to quit. I'll phone the bank president to make it easier for you."

"Justin, it's fine. I'm fine," she pleads, coming over to him. She takes his hands in hers. "Look at me, I'm fine. Please don't make me quit work. Working makes me happy."

He frowns. "Being at home should make you happy."

"It does," she lies. "Home makes me happy, but work does too. Don't you want me to be happy?"

She pecks him on the lips, but he doesn't return the kiss. The memory of Duncan Clyde's lips forces color into her cheeks.

Justin sighs. He pulls his hands away. "We'll talk about this in the morning. Put my dinner in the ice box. I'm not hungry."

* * *

><p>Weeks pass and Duncan Clyde continues to haunt her. Reporters continue to want to talk to her about him. Justin refuses to even say his name. Courtney's mind refuses to let her dream with anything but the press of his lips on hers, the leather soft touch of his hands all over. But Courtney continues to wake up to the sun in her eyes and the smell of Justin on the sheets and the promise of stagnant days ahead of her.<p>

She starts doing research. Duncan Clyde is better at covering his tracks than she originally thought and he appears in the newspaper infrequently. Little snippets here, blurbs there, rumors in the editorial sometimes. She cuts out everything she finds and pastes it in a notebook, the same she had with her at the bank.

Courtney learns what she can: His preferred method of crime is grocery stores and gas stations. He's been found amongst other crime scenes though, in a couple speakeasies and most recently, the robbery of a bank in Kansas. He has two partners—an unidentified man, assumed to be one of his brothers by the investigating police, and the slender Asian woman she'd seen with him at the bank.

Courtney holds the clipping about the Kansas robbery above her head, reading it while lying down. How exciting, to move around from place to place in such a short amount of time. She'd give anything to see Kansas city. Any city.

The afternoon sun bathes the bed in a pool of light and she closes her eyes. She tosses the clipping aside, looks at her watch and curses. Justin will be home in a couple of hours. He was bringing company as well; his boss and his wife were coming over, and Justin had strictly instructed her that they were to wine and dine them if she wanted him to get a promotion. The whole thing would be merely a show though. Justin had told her he had his boss eating out of the palm of his hands after uncovering that his dear old boss was cheating on his wife, and as long as Justin held that bit of information over him, he was getting any and all promotions that his heart desired.

Still, Courtney needs to play along. So with a grumble of how she hates cooking, she puts some clothes on and sets to making the roast chicken and potatoes Justin's boss had a penchant for. She does it even though it's damn near a hundred degrees outside, and she would rather be lazing about in the sun, drinking one of those fruity drinks they were always going on about in the magazine and wondering if someone like Duncan Clyde had ever had a boss in his life.


	5. Notions

Dinner goes off without a hitch. The men love her cooking and as they smoke cigars out on the porch afterwards, the boss's wife offers to help her do dishes. Courtney insists she has it under control but the woman picks up a rag anyway.

"Your husband is so brave," Beth says. She's a short, plain looking country girl and looks at Courtney in awe, diving right into gossip. "I can't believe he still lets you work at the place where you were assaulted! Brady would _never _let me leave the house!"

Courtney scrubs hard at a grease stain. "I wasn't assaulted. And I wasn't in serious danger."

And maybe it was the naïveté Justin was always chastising her for or maybe Duncan Clyde was better than he thought he was and she more desperate that she realized because when he'd asked her to join him, she almost said yes. Going with him might have been easier than having this conversation.

"I mean," Beth continues, oblivious, "I'm frightened of going anywhere on my own these days. I usually stay at home while Brady works late."

"I could never do that," Courtney says.

Beth turns to her, gasping like Courtney had used a swear. "Not even when you have children?"

Courtney isn't sure what prompts the honesty. Maybe it's because she knows the truth of Brady's "late nights" or because everyone she talks to keeps bringing up the memory of Duncan Clyde's breath against her throat, but Courtney finds herself vigorously scrubbing a wine glass and saying, "I'm not sure I _want _children."

The girl beside her turns a shade whiter at Courtney's words. "No.. No _children_? But.. but what are you two going to _do_ all by yourselves?"

Courtney puts the glass on the drying rack to keep from cracking it. "Marriage isn't all about children, you know," she says tightly. "Justin and I are perfectly capable of living together romantically by ourselves."

"Right... Well, I didn't mean to say that you _couldn't_... I just... well, I would _never_ feel complete without a little boy or girl to remind me of my sweet Brady!"

Courtney rolls her eyes. "Not every woman needs a baby," she says. "Or a man either. In fact, believe it or not, some women up north are doing better financially on their own. Some women are even perfectly content with their own jobs, their own homes, and—" she pauses, noticing how Beth is staring at her.

Courtney pulls some hair back out of her face and fixes the clip in her updo with a _snap!_

"Nevermind." She grabs another dish from the sink. "Just a joke."

* * *

><p>When Beth and Brady leave and Courtney lies down for the night, she feels the crackling newspaper clippings of Duncan Clyde under her mattress. Her body flushes with the memory of blue eyes with dark hair and pinstriped suits and the tenor of his siren song voice.<p>

"Brady had a great time," Justin says, kissing her cheek and getting into bed beside her. "Thank you. That promotion is all but guaranteed."

She turns over to him, her body warm in all the right places.

"So lets celebrate," Courtney says pointedly.

Justin looks over at her. "It's a little late for champagne."

She fights the urge to frown. "No, I mean," she rubs her legs against his suggestively, "let's _celebrate."_

Justin's brow furrows. "Bonnie, I thought we agreed that we didn't want children right now. Not at this time in our lives."

Now Courtney does frown. "Who said anything about children?"

"Well you were just suggesting…"

"Yes, but why does that have to come back to children?" That made two people today who wanted to talk to her about kids. "I just want to have sex with you."

"Honey, it's late," he says, turning over. "I have a week-long business trip with Brady tomorrow that I need to rest up for. We'll discuss this when I get back."

"There's nothing to discuss!" Courtney shouts. Justin turns back to her, eyes narrowed.

"Bonnie. You're starting to sound like one of those women you hear about on the radio," he says carefully. "This isn't like you. I don't think working at that bank is a good idea anymore."

Courtney's jaw drops. "_What?_"

"You're starting to get all these notions, and it's not good for your health, dear. I'm going to call them first thing when I get back from my trip and turn in your resignation."

Courtney's grabs his arm, shaking him.

"These _notions_? It's called _sex_, Justin! Something that _modern _husbands and _modern _wives do just because it's _fun_ and they love each other. It has nothing to do with my job, I just want us to be like that. Why can't we be like them, Justin?" she asks.

"Because those couples aren't good Christian people like us," he says sternly. "Drop it."

Courtney flips over on the bed. "I can't stand you some days," she mutters.

"Oh really?" he snaps, "Because I'm acting like I've always acted. It's you who's acting intolerable. You're moody and aggressive all the time, and you have all these ideas about how couples and women should be."

Courtney scoffs. "Oh, so it's a crime now to want to be a modern woman?"

"No, but it should be. No self-respecting, God-fearing woman would want to be a...What are they called again? Robert and I were talking about those harlots a few days ago.. oh, that's right. Flappers."

"But—!"

"_Enough_, Bonnie. Go to sleep. This is the last I want to hear about this," he warns before falling silent.

Courtney grinds her teeth and turns away from him. It wasn't a crime to want to have sex with your husband. Where did he get off, calling her a wannabe whore? Flappers weren't as bad as he made them seem. They lead their own lives and made their own choices in men and clothes and careers.

The thought trickles into her mind that Duncan Clyde would never be like this with her about sex. And even though the thought is ungrounded, it lodges in her mind. She doesn't know Duncan Clyde, but she knows he wouldn't be like this. A life of crime with him, if at all, wouldn't be _like this._

Courtney sets her brow. Justin thought she was losing her mind? Thought she was a whore and a terrible wife? Fine.

She'd prove him right.


	6. Fishnets

The next morning, she waits for Justin to leave on his trip. She packs him lunch and kisses him on the cheek and apologizes for last night. He smiles at her understandingly but still tells her that he's going to telephone the bank when he gets to work and turn in her resignation. She smiles back at him and says it's probably for the best.

Then as he drives away, Courtney counts to sixty seconds in her mind. In sixty seconds, if she still wants to leave Justin, she'll do it. If she still wants to find Duncan and take a chance on him in sixty seconds with nothing telling her no, she'll do it.

In sixty seconds with her options weighed and her conscience clear, she won't go to work and she'll do it.

The thinnest hand go all the way around the watch face. Sixty seconds pass.

She walks back inside the house, puts on comfortable shoes, and walks into town.

* * *

><p>At the front of the hairdressers, Courtney stares in the window. It's a salon she's never been to before, far from where anyone would recognize her. She watches the women inside gossip and work, while the barber shop next door boasts laughter and the smell of shaving cream. Nobody notices her.<p>

Carefully, Courtney counts her money. It's enough for a haircut and a few trinkets if she's feeling practical. If she's feeling impractical, however, it's enough to paint the town red.

A woman passes her coming out of the hairdressers, her blonde hair freshly permed. Courtney eyes the look, but she's looking for something else.

She walks in and sits at a chair as the hairdresser asks, "What are you lookin' to get today, love?"

Courtney picks up a magazine. "That," she says, pointing to the flapper on the cover. "Make me look like that."

The hairdresser makes a face. "That's a lot of hair to cut off. Are you sure, Misus?"

Courtney takes off her hat and her tresses tumble down her back. "Yes."

"Because I think you shouldn't do anything so drastic without consultin' your husband first."

"My husband is fully aware," she says tightly, folding her hands to cover her ring.

"There's no going back from this, you know?"

"Yes, I know! Just—" Courtney snatches the scissors from the woman's side table and cuts a chunk of her own hair at the shoulder line. A foot of hair coils on the ground.

"All right! All right!" the woman says, taking the scissors back from Courtney. "You're serious, fine, I believe you. I'll do it right before you walk out of here like a mess and someone else thinks I did this to you. Hold still."

When Courtney walks out an hour later with a lighter head and a lighter heart, every single person on the street notices.

* * *

><p>She goes to the seediest looking clothing store she finds. She buys herself a red dress, short and beaded, and fine fishnet stockings. At another store, she buys gloves and matching shoes and the man behind the counter won't stop staring at her as she saunters through the aisles.<p>

When she smiles at him, demure and yet sly, he gives her a discount on her purchase.

* * *

><p>At home, she turns her purse upside down and all the makeup she purchased spills into her sink. She tries everything out, all the colors, until something looks sexy enough. She props up a magazine to try and get the eyeliner right. When she does, she changes into her new clothes and parades around her room, feeling like a whole new person. She takes off her wedding ring and tosses it on her bed.<p>

Then she goes to the kitchen, bringing with her a page of stationery from Justin's home office, and pulls over that morning's newspaper. On the stationery, she writes Justin a note explaining what she's done and where she plans to go. She seals the envelope and leaves it on the kitchen table under the fruit bowl. In the newspaper, she scans until she finds what she's looking for, then circles it in bright red lipstick.

Duncan Clyde's last known location.

Chicago.


	7. Chicago

The three day train ride to Chicago is relaxing, almost therapeutic. How odd that Justin went on business trips and boarded trains every month, and yet she had never been on a train in her life. Courtney leans back in her seat in first class and sips from her cola.

People cannot keep their eyes off of her. The train is mostly businessmen, and every few moments one peeks over his newspaper and glances at her long legs from under her short dress, clothed only by fishnets. She smiles with her reddened lips and watches them stare as she crosses her legs or shakes out her short bouncing curls.

But she has more important matters to handle.

She glances down to the newspaper she had been given by the man who got off on the last stop and scans for news of Duncan Clyde. No new heist. No new headline. With any luck, he was still in Chicago.

"_Now arriving, Chicago Terminal."_

Courtney downs the rest of her cola and grabs her suitcase. She disembarks and shivers in the gust of wind that greets her on the platform. She hadn't thought to bring a coat and possibly obscure her new outfit. She spends a few minutes walking around the station, taking in the rich city air, the magical bustling of people in all directions. There had to be some way she could get alcohol around here.

A voice booms around the station, calling out today's headlines in the paper. Courtney opens up the cigarette holder from her side and pulls out a stick and a lighter, lighting it before taking a long drag and sauntering up to the news stand.

"Where's a gal like me likely to get a whiskey 'round here?" she asks, layering on her best Southern accent.

The man is eating out of her palm the moment he gives her a once over. "Well, there's a place down fifth street, if yer looking, but," he whispers conspiratorially, "you didn't hear that from me."

"Thanks, hon," she says and saunters off, swaying her hips a little more in her heels so the beads of her dress clink against each other.

She marvels at the skyscrapers as she walks down the street. It's like the city stretches up for miles. She wants to get a taxi and take a proper tour of the city. She wants to go to a Marshall Field's department store and see if it's everything the magazines says it is.

A car almost hits her when she crosses the road, distracted, but a simple blown kiss is all it takes to calm the driver's anger. He even points her towards fifth street.

Courtney finds the speakeasy behind the grocery store without much trouble. The man guarding the peephole takes one look at her and lets her in without a word. Inside is a cloud of cigarette smoke and feathered headdresses, top hats and shined shoes with grime, swing dancers out on the floor and a jazz band playing their hearts out. Other than the suitcase she's carrying, Courtney feels like she fits right in for the first time.

She walks up to the bar, still smoking.

"What can I get ya, eh sweetheart?" the bartender asks.

"Whiskey. Neat," Courtney says, pulling the newspaper out of her case. "And some info."

The short man pours her the drink, saying, "What kinda info?"

"I'm trying to find someone. An...ex-boyfriend of mine," she says. She lays the paper flat in front of the man, tapping out some cigarette ash on the article in question. "These days he goes by Duncan Clyde."

"I love it when dames say my name."

Courtney whirls. A couple of seats to her left, grinning at her brilliantly, looking drunk as a skunk, is Duncan Clyde.

A smile slithers across her lips and a weight vanishes from her stomach. She tilts her head, taking her drink and walking over.

"Well if it isn't the man of my dreams." She shoots back the whiskey. "I've been looking for you."

"Have we met?" Duncan slurs, half-smiling, "Because it'd be a goddamn crime to forget those legs of yers. Specially if they opened for me once."

The weight in her stomach comes right back. He didn't remember her. She'd traveled all this way, left Justin, left her old life for his promise, and the son of a bitch didn't remember her.

"We've met before," Courtney says, leisurely swirling around the stir-straw in her glass. "I'm interested in the work you do."

"A fan, eh? I can live with that," he says with a grin. He tugs her onto his lap. "S'not every day a beautiful dame comes calling on me."

"Really?" she asks, skeptical as she sets the empty glass down on the bar behind her. "I pegged you to be quite the womanizer."

"I said beautiful, didn't I?" he says, his breath hot and heavy in her ear. "I get tons of dames, but none as damn damely as yourself."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she says coyly.

"Nope," he hiccups, "Just you, babydoll." He shifts her on his lap and she feels his revolver dig into her side. At least, she thinks its his revolver.

Courtney's cheeks flush red. She giggles involuntarily.

"What's yer name, gorgeous?" he asks, kissing up her neck.

"What say you forget the name, buy me a drink, and dance with me. If you're good, we'll have a little _fun _after," she purrs.

Duncan grabs her by the hips and moves her around so that she's straddling him. He bites her collarbone, hard. "What say you forget my name too and we just skip to that last part?"

Courtney gasps as he rubs against her. Through gritted teeth, she does her best to sound seductive. "Your place better be close."

Duncan bangs a hand on the counter. "Zeke! Key to the upstairs room!"

The bartender slides the key across the counter into Duncan's palm, saying, "Need it back before the boss gets back, eh?"

Duncan doesn't hear. He holds up the key to Courtney, the other hand on her lower back. "Close enough for ya?"

Courtney grabs him by his lapels and kisses him. "No," she pants. "_Closer_."

Duncan staggers upright. His hand keeps her from falling on her rear. He kisses her sloppily, almost falling over. Then he's grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her towards a staircase.

Courtney has a final moment of clarity and scoops up her suitcase before she forgets everything except that she's finally with Duncan Clyde and she has no idea exactly who is eating out of whose hands.

* * *

><p>The room he takes her to is nothing special, just a bed with a wrought iron headboard, a fleece blanket, and sheets that look like they haven't been washed since they were bought. She swallows thickly. He shuts the door as she sets down her suitcase then immediately he's on her again. It's a thousand times better than any kiss from Justin and Courtney kisses him back ecstatically.<p>

Duncan pushes her against the wall, sliding her dress up her thighs, his hands cold against her legs. She shivers and blesses every penny she spent on the fishnets. He tries to lower down the straps on her dress but she tenses, glancing at the bed.

"What?" he mutters against her lips, stopping. "Don't tell me yer a virgin or sumthin'."

"I have had...plenty of experience," she lies.

"Then stop hesitating and get to it. I'm getting bored, and if I'm bored, I ain't staying," he says, placing his hands against the wall on either side of her, staring her down.

"Well," Courtney says, still glancing behind him at the mattress, "shouldn't we move to the bed then and get started?"

"Bed is boring," he says, moving his hands to her breasts and pushing her hard against the wall. "Any old fart with a penis can fuck on a bed. Figured a gal like you could use a bit more imagination."

"Yes, well I didn't come up here to see your _imagination _now did I?" she says, placing her hands over his. "You promised me something about a 'trigger finger' and I expect you to deliver."

Duncan smirks then kisses her sharply, knocking her against the wall. She pushes off his jacket and starts undoing his shirt. At least both Justin and Duncan undressed the same. Courtney has some trouble with his belt, however, and he takes a clumsy step back, fumbling to do it himself.

"Lose the dress," he instructs. "Keep the fishnets on."

Was that a thing unmarried women did? "Why?"

"Because I said so."

Courtney takes off the dress. It's only when she's standing in front of him in just her bra and fishnets because she hadn't bothered buying panties that she remembers she's no one's to boss around, not even Duncan Clyde.

"If you want me to keep the fishnets on then you have to, um, keep the fedora on."

Duncan ungracefully falls out of his pants and underwear. When he picks himself up, panting, hard, and eyeing her hungrily, she puts her hands on her hips and adds, teasingly, "Because I say so."

He smirks, picks up his fedora from where it had fallen and puts it back on. "Kinky."

She doesn't get the chance to appreciate how truly sexy Duncan Clyde looks in just a fedora and socks when he flattens her against the wall. He pulls her bra down to her stomach, not bothering to unclasp it, and kisses his way down her succulently exposed skin. Courtney moans in delight, tipping her head back as he grabs her knee and hooks it around his waist. His trigger finger dips into the space between and her breath hitches.

Courtney digs her nails hard into his shoulder blades and doesn't let him stop.


	8. Handcuffs

Courtney wakes before Duncan does. With a pleasant soreness, she props herself up on her elbows and looks down at his snoring form. She flattens a few hairs he has sticking up after his fedora fell off between positions and climbs off the bed. Pulling on her bra, she rummages through Duncan's clothes until she comes up with a gun.

With a smile, she slides back into bed, straddling Duncan. Lightly, her fingers dance down his chest. Courtney leans down to press her lips to his collarbone, then trails her tongue up his neck. He shifts a little, the corners of his mouth turning up.

"Yer a frisky one, arent'cha?" he mutters sleepily. With one arm behind his head and his eyes still closed, he runs the other hand slowly up her inner thigh. "I like a dame with initiative. Barely done with round three and yer already raring for round four."

"You could say that," she purrs. Courtney sits up and points the pistol at his face. "Now wake up so we can get started."

Ever so slowly, Duncan blinks open his eyes. The hand on her thigh pauses.

"Now," Courtney says, keeping her voice coy. "Let's talk about me joining your little rag-tag team of criminals."

Duncan looks her over for a long moment, sitting up slightly. Then, with a groan, he flops back down on the pillow.

"My momma warned me 'bout messin with beautiful, dangerous women," he says.

Courtney smirks. "You forgot intelligent."

Duncan's hand whips out from under his pillow, a revolver in hand, and Courtney flinches back.

"No I didn't."

He points the gun at the space between her breasts and, smirking back at her, says, "You look spiffy, Barley. Do something with yer hair?"

"It's _Bonnie,_ you uncultured swine," Courtney growls, gripping her pistol harder.

"But it ain't, is it," he says, smiling knowingly, "Courtney?"

His arousal presses against her ass. Courtney doesn't let it distract her from her standoff with a seasoned criminal.

"Did you _really_ only recognize me now?"

"Darling, you insult me," he says playfully. "I may not remember every gal I've offered my trigger finger to, but I sure as hell can remember a dame who _asks _for it." He trails his fingers up her inner thigh, grinning like a fox in a henhouse. "You can't say I didn't deliver."

Courtney slaps his hand away, blushing. Duncan laughs.

"Wow, darling, yer dead fish husband must've been a _really _fucking dead fish if ya followed me all the way from Texas just for a good rub. You haven't even seen _half _the things I could do for ya, baby doll."

"Only one thing I'm interested in right now," she grinds out.

Duncan eases back into his pillow, revolver still pointed at her breastbone. "So ya want to join the crew, huh? Be my gun moll? Well, sorry babe, but that train left the station. The offer only stood while we were at the bank. It's no good anymore."

Courtney pulls the hammer back on the gun. "You don't have much of a choice, _babe_. I'm coming with you, or I shoot you."

"Hm," Duncan says thoughtfully, pressing the tip of his gun against her skin and moving the fabric of her bra aside to admire her nipple.

She slaps his hand away again, growling, "Are you listening to me? I'm serious! I'm coming with you!"

"Well, if yer so ready to run with a gang of criminals," he says, "I'm sure ya came ready with a _loaded _gun, right?"

Courtney blinks, looking at the gun in her hand.

Duncan bolts upright, throwing Courtney onto her back and pinning her arms above her head single-handedly, his knee digging into her hip.

"Now," he says casually, clicking open his revolver so she can see that it has the full six bullets, then shutting it again. "How did ya find me, Mrs. Jones?"

Courtney thrashes under him, squeezing the trigger frantically. The gun clicks empty. "Let go of me!"

"You seduce and threaten an expert criminal and don't expect anything in return?" He shakes his head and tsks. "If you could find me, anyone can. How'd ya do it?"

She saves her energy and sets her jaw. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Ya ever been shot before?" The gun's cool metal press against her side, just under her ribs. "It ain't a pretty feeling, darling. How'd ya find me?"

"I got lucky," Courtney snarls.

Duncan's smile curls mischievously. "No one's that lucky, doll. Except me. Tell me how, and I'll only leave ya _slightly _less pretty than how I found ya."

"I followed your paper trail to here," she says. "You're not exactly invisible."

"Then?" he asks.

"Then I asked every suspicious character in every bar in Chicago if they'd seen you until I found you," she lies.

Duncan starts drawing little circles on her skin with the tip of the gun. "And where does yer husband think you are?"

"He doesn't get back from a business trip for a few days. I left him a note telling him I was leaving him for you and if he wanted to—" Duncan starts shaking his head. "What?" she demands.

"Telling yer soon-to-be-ex husband the name and location of the man yer leaving him for?" He sighs. "Y'know for a married gal working at a bank, I pegged ya to be a mite smarter."

Duncan tucks his gun into the elastic of her fishnets, grabs her by the waist, and pulls her off the bed. Courtney kicks and screams but Duncan quickly clamps a hand over her mouth and pins her arms to her sides.

"We're going to be quiet now, ain't we, peaches?" he says in her ear. "I'd sure hate for any of them drunk, horny, slobbering hooligans downstairs to come rushing up and find ya in this tantalizing outfit."

She breathes hard and glares at him as he briefly releases her mouth and leans over to his discarded pile of clothes to pull out a pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket.

"I was saving these for later, but they'll be mighty helpful now," he comments as he throws her back on the bed, catching her as she scrambles away. He holds her down long enough to handcuff her through the rails above her head. "I will say I'm impressed though. The coppers have been tryin to track me down for years, and you swing it in a couple of months 'cause yer _horny_."

"Go to fucking Hell," Courtney spits. She yanks at the headboard. She needed to get her hands out of the cuffs and around Duncan Clyde's throat.

He slaps her ass. "Been there, done that," he says and picks up his fedora from where it was resting on the pillow beside her. He slips on his clothes, snatches her suitcase from the floor, and heads for the door.

"Wait! Wait, wait, wait!" Courtney shouts after him. "You can't leave me like this! Please! I wasn't...I wasn't really going to kill you!"

"Oh I know," Duncan says, pausing by the doorframe to grin at her. "You don't have that killing look to ya."

"Please!" she begs, straining against the cuffs. "Please, what am I supposed to do? I left everything for this! I...all my money's in that suitcase."

"I know," Duncan says again, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting up.

Courtney finally says, "Please don't do this to me. I can't go back home. I won't."

"You can and ya will," he says after a drag. "This ain't the life ya want, doll. Trust me. It's good for a weekend vacation or a story to tell yer friends but you wouldn't last—"

"I will!" she shouts. "I can! Help me! Help me _learn_ and I can help _you_! I can do this!"

Duncan looks her over, chained to the bed in barely her unmentionables. He crushes the cigarette under his heel and walks over to her. Then, smirking, takes his gun from her waistband.

"Go home, love. You'll thank me for this later."

He turns and walks out the door.

"Duncan!" she screams after him. "Duncan Clyde!"

"Catch ya on the flip side, Courtney."


	9. Rain

For a long hour, Courtney kicks and yanks at the cuffs and headboard. She gets up on her knees and pulls against the iron. Neither gives. Forgetting modesty, she shouts for help but the music from the live band downstairs is too loud. Courtney collapses back on the mattress, her wrists raw and stinging like her eyes.

There's a polite knock on the door. Courtney scrambles to cover herself as a barmaid comes in to the room.

"Are you Mrs. Jones?" she asks, eying Courtney.

"Yes," Courtney admits.

The barmaid walks over with a small silver key and uncuffs her. "Mr. Clyde sent me to get you after sixty minutes. Zeke the bartender has something for you when you go downstairs."

Courtney nods, rubbing her wrists. She keeps her head down, but out of the corner of her eye she catches the barmaid giving her a derogatory glare before she tosses the key on the bed and leaves. Even after the woman has left and she's alone in the room, getting dressed, Courtney keeps her eyes down. Her clothes burn of embarrassment as she puts them on. The beads itch.

She goes down to the bar and Zeke tells her Duncan bought her a whiskey and left her something. He slides her an envelope as she half-heartedly shoots back the drink. In the envelope, she counts the couple bills he left her and the train ticket, stamped with a date that night to Texas. Enough money for a few meals, not enough to follow him again.

She walks out into the street, shivering in the wind, and a man on the corner eyes her hungrily, asks her if she has anywhere to stay tonight. Courtney covers herself with her arms and has to run when the man starts trying to follow her. She disappears into a clothing store and asks if they have a jacket. The done-up women behind the counter, in pencil skirts and up-dos, take one look at her and tell her they don't have anything there for _her _kind of woman. It takes her three attempts to find a store that will sell her a jacket and even then it's overpriced.

"Tough economic times," says the cashier, smirking at her. "We all gotta work hard to pay the bills, don't we?"

Courtney slaps all of her money on the counter, snatches up the jacket, and walks back to the train station, shaking violently. On the train platform, the man behind the news stand recognizes her.

"Find what you were lookin for, doll?" he asks.

She buries her face in her chest and squeezes her eyes shut. "None of your business."

The three-day train ride back home is nerve-wrecking. She hyperventilates at every minor stop. She has to get back before Justin does, lest he find her letter. Stupid. She was stupid. Stupid enough to believe that Duncan would let her join him when his character suggested he'd do exactly what he did: fool around with her and leave her for the next dame that came along. How could she have deluded herself so badly into thinking otherwise?

Courtney makes it to the house just before sundown on the third day as the sky starts to turn sour with rain.

"Justin?" she calls, rushing in. But the house is empty. Courtney grabs the letter under the fruit bowl, unopened, untouched, and rips it to shreds before using it as kindle for the fire despite the Texas heat. The cold from Chicago was still in her bones.

In her room, she tears the dress off, a few strings of beads snapping and scattering across the floor. She kicks them under her bed. She rips the fishnets. The gloves and heels and jewelry follow suit and she tosses it all into the back of her closet, then goes to her bed and puts the wedding band back on her finger. It feels heavy.

In the bathroom, she pulls her short hair back into a tiny ponytail and puts on a hat despite the hour. Maybe Justin won't notice until it grows back. She scrubs off her makeup, but it's stubborn and refuses to come off as easily as the clothes.

The front door clicks.

"Bonnie?"

Courtney stops, whimpers reflexively at the sound. She washes her hands of the mascara stains and rouge streaks and stares herself down in the mirror for a long second. She breathes deep. She sets her shoulders. She puts on a house dress and slowly, steadily, walks into the main parlor.

Justin's on the threshold of the door, shaking an umbrella out on the porch.

"There you are. Thanks for setting up the fire," he says, focused on the umbrella. "Driving in this rain was insane. I'm going to have to dry out my trousers."

"I'm glad you're home safe," she says.

Justin turns to her. In the light of the fire, he squints. "Are you wearing make-up?"

Courtney nods and stares at the rug.

He leaves the umbrella on the porch to dry and shuts the door behind him, coming over to Courtney. He tilts her chin up to get a better look at her face.

"What did you do to yourself? You look like a circus clown."

She turns her face from him sharply.

"I only did what you suggested," she says in a low voice.

Justin doesn't answer. He looks her over carefully, then pulls her hat off by the brim. His jaw drops.

"You cut off your hair? All of it?!"

She can't look him in the eyes. "There's some left…"

Justin whirls away from her, hat clenched in his hand, the other pressed against his forehead. "I knew it! I knew I shouldn't have left you alone for so long after what happened at the bank! You were going off on your ideas again, weren't you?!"

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

He throws the hat on the couch. "That's it. First thing tomorrow, I'm walking to the bank to turn in your resignation. You aren't going back there ever again. You aren't _working _again after this."

"This?" Courtney says to the floor. "_This _is what you wanted."

Justin turns back to her. "How could I possibly _want_ my wife to look like a sex worker?!"

Her gaze snaps to his. All at once, she's shaking again.

"I did what you expected me to do!" she shouts at him. "_This_ is what you said you wanted from me! _This _is exactly what you said I was!" And now the tears start coming. "Because according to you, the only thing I care about is sleeping around and dressing like a whore! Because you think wanting to do something with my life means I'm a terrible mother to a kid I don't even have yet! I said _fuck it! _If my own husband thinks he married a tramp, then everyone else might as well think it too!"

Courtney collapses on the armchair, unable to hold it in anymore. She was an adulterer. She was a naïve idiot. To think someone like Duncan Clyde actually cared enough about her to give her a chance. Now she's right where she started, with shorter hair and a ripped up dress in her closet.

She doesn't hear him, but she feels when Justin sits down beside her and tenderly pulls her into his embrace.

"Oh Bonnie," he says softly, petting her hair as she cries. "Oh dearest, if this is all about the fight we had, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry if what I said was so hurtful, you felt you had to go mutilate yourself like this. I'm so sorry, honey, come here, now."

Courtney struggles uncomfortably in his grip, but Justin only holds her tighter.

He kisses her hair. "I am so truly sorry, Bonnie. I... Here. I think I know what to do to make it up to you."

She pushes away, but his insistence overpowers her. He pulls her to the bedroom and whispers to her lovingly as he strips out of his suit and pulls off her cotton dress and underwear. When he kisses her comfortingly, she can't pretend it's Duncan anymore but she doesn't want it to be Justin either. Even then, she could never love Justin with the same burning intensity with which she delusionally loved Duncan Clyde these last few months.

Courtney squeezes her eyes closed as he lays her on the bed, still crying jerkily. She says nothing as he touches her where he wants, his hands smooth from a lifetime of leather gloves and folding envelopes. With shaky resolve, she turns from his kisses and refuses to fake anything, and eventually, before Justin's even finished, exhaustion wins out and she sleeps fitfully through the rest of it.


	10. New York

**Ariel's AN: Wow, chapter 10, woo! Things are starting to get interesting. I'd just like to take a time out and give a shout out to all the cool gangsters and gun molls who read and reviewed this story thus far! It's really awesome, and it really motivates Stray and I to keep going, so thanks everyone!**

**Stray's AN: Thanks for joining us on this wild ride! Sorry for the slight delay, but we needed a little time to prep and organize this next part of the story. Also, new TAOP was released this week as well and I needed a week to prep that. But we hope you've enjoyed our take on the Bonnie and Clyde mythos so far (with plenty of references to the original duo) and our 1920s/1930s tour of America. _We _sure have had a blast.**

**Don't worry janes and jobbies, you ain't seen nothing yet.**

* * *

><p>Two week after, Courtney sits at the breakfast table she's been sitting at every morning since they bought the house. She doesn't serve herself any food. After dutifully handing Justin his bacon and eggs and making sure the frying pan is soaking properly, Courtney sits in her chair and stares out the window at a beat-up green Ford across the street. The heat is getting so intense, the paint looks like it could peel right off the vehicle.<p>

Courtney sits in silence as Justin eats, cutting both bacon and egg very precisely. She doesn't tear her eyes from the car outside when she hears his chair scrape across the linoleum floor, but when she feels her husband's hand on her shoulder, she looks up.

"Is breakfast okay? I can get you something else," Courtney says, getting up. Justin shakes his head and gently pushes her back down, running his hands slowly through her hair. She closes her eyes to his touch.

"It's so short," Justin mutters regretfully.

"I know," Courtney offers back.

Justin pulls his chair beside hers, moving his coffee over as well. He takes a seat and grasps a hand on her lap.

"Bonnie, I'm worried about you," he begins. "You haven't been the same since you left work. You don't put on your usual makeup or do your hair...not that there's much left to do with it," he adds after a second thought.

Courtney doesn't respond. She pulls over the newspaper from his side of the table with her free hand and scans it automatically. No familiar name. Nothing.

"Did going to see your mother not cheer you up?"

She shrugs. She had gone to see her mother two towns over shortly after she'd come back. Mrs. Bons understood her sorrow and held her as she cried, but she couldn't understand the source of her unhappiness and Courtney was too ashamed to tell her the whole truth of her trip to Chicago and second encounter with Duncan Clyde. Her mother was stoutly convinced that Duncan Clyde had abused or brainwashed her in their first encounter regardless.

"I think you might be getting sick," Justin continues. "You're pale, dear. Staying inside all day isn't good for your skin, or your health. Why don't we go out to my father's farm this weekend? It's been very hot these days. A weekend at the farm all by ourselves might be just what you need to regain your vigor."

The farm is in the middle of nowhere. No shops, no restaurants for miles. Just acres of wheat and corn. Courtney's alone enough as it was. She shakes her head.

"Well, why don't you go join a bridge club? Lots of ladies your age do that," he suggests.

Courtney turns her head towards the window. "I don't have any friends."

He rubs the palm of her hand. "What about Beth? I'm sure you could tag along to one of her bridge clubs."

"I don't want to go with her, Justin."

"Then how about some poetry?" he says. "You used to write all the time but I haven't seen you pick up a pen in months. You could write some poems and send them into the papers."

"I'm not in the mood," she says monotonously.

Justin focuses on their hands. He plays with her fingers. He turns to take a sip from his coffee, then sets the mug down with finality.

"Darling, do you want a baby? Is that what's making you feel so empty? Because if you want a baby...then maybe it's time we have one."

Courtney snorts.

Justin is silent for a moment. Suddenly he snaps his fingers, sitting up. "What about your sister up in New York? Maybe you should go visit her. It would do you good."

This makes Courtney turn her head. If anyone would understand her, it would certainly be her sister. She could tell her everything, just like she did when they were little girls, before she married and moved away. Bridgette would understand in a way Justin and her mother couldn't.

"Yes...Maybe seeing Bridgette _will _help," Courtney says.

"It's settled then. I want you to bathe and put on your best dress. How can you expect to feel any better when you're a mess?" he asks, standing and kissing her head. "It'll lift your spirits, looking pretty again. I'll head out and buy you a ticket now, and I'll be home early from work to take you to the train station for your first train trip. Be ready by three," he instructs, chugging down the rest of his coffee, grabbing his briefcase, and leaving.

Courtney stares after him. Not once in their entire marriage had he ever taken off work early.

The prospect of a third three-day train ride in as many weeks sounds exhausting, but maybe New York is a good idea. A breath of fresh air, a reunion with her sister, before she sets about finding a long term solution for her unhappiness.

She watches Justin and the green Ford drive down the street and turn at the corner. Courtney eats the breakfast Justin left on his plate, tosses the dish in the sink, and goes to pack.

* * *

><p>A handful of hours into her trip to New York, when she's quite settled and has started adjusting to the long stretches of bumping and rattling, an attendant in a velvet uniform introduces himself as Cody, comes up to Courtney's seat, and starts apologizing profusely.<p>

"We're s-so very sorry, Mrs. Jones," he stutters, sweating. "But it seems we've booked your s-seat for another gentleman at the next train s-stop."

Courtney places a leather bookmark in her romance novel and turns to the attendant, confused.

"My husband booked me this seat for the duration of the trip, so whoever else was booked for here—"

"We're s-s-sorry, ma'am," he says, pulling at his collar. "But the conductor has asked me to upgrade you immediately to our first class cart as an ap-pology."

"Oh," she says. "Well then, no harm no foul."

Cody grabs her bags from overhead and says, "Follow me, ma'am."

He walks her three carts closer to the engine. Courtney passes several rows of identical looking businessmen travelling for their jobs, many of which look like men she'd seen on her train trips to and from Chicago. Courtney bows her head and uses her hat to hide her face in shade. Cody takes her to a nearly empty train car where he puts her bags up across the table from a gentleman reading the newspaper.

"Enjoy the remainder of your s-scenic trip, ma'am," he says, bowing quickly, and walking back to the other carts.

Courtney eyes the door of the cart for a moment longer after he leaves, suspicious. Cody looks familiar for some reason. She combs her memory for a few minutes; when nothing comes to mind though, Courtney settles herself into her new, more comfortable seat and resumes reading the harlequin romance Justin had bought her at the train platform.

A different train attendant walks into the room, also nervously, and starts methodically listing the next few train stops. His instructions for the New York train transfer is unclear though as the attendant starts coughing. He turns and walks back out of the cart.

"Excuse me," Courtney asks the gentleman across from her, "did you hear him say how many more stops until the New York transfer?"

"Don't worry 'bout it, doll."

Duncan Clyde lowers his magazine, grinning around a cigar.

"We'll be getting off a mite sooner than that."


	11. Hammer

Courtney jumps to her feet and slaps Duncan Clyde across the table so hard it sprains her wrist.

She hears hammers pull back, though Duncan doesn't immediately reach for anything but his cheek, and Courtney turns to see the only other individuals in the train cart, the woman from the robbery and the man from the newspaper photos, standing, pointing pistols at her.

"You're right, _hermano_," the man says, appreciatively. "She _is _feisty."

"Sit down, Bonnie Jones," the woman says. "We haven't gone through enough trouble to make shooting you right now the poor choice."

Duncan waves them off, rubbing his jaw. "Lose the guns. If you shot up every gal who's ever slapped me, you'd be out of ammunition _real_ quick."

"What is going on?" Courtney demands as the man and woman put their guns away.

"Thought you'd be more happy to see me, Sweetcheeks," Duncan says with a scowl, adjusting the fedora she'd knocked askew with her slap. "You've done gone and hurt my feelings now."

Courtney fists clench. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He smirks. "I dunno, _Courtney_, maybe I changed my mind and thought I'd give ya a chance after all. If yer half as good out of the bedroom as you showed me you were in it, you'd make a helluva gun moll. Whaddya say?"

Her breath catches at the offer. But her common sense catches up quickly. With a stony expression, Courtney swipes her dress under her legs and sits firmly back down in her seat. "After what you put me through? Forget it."

Duncan gives a low whistle. "Listen, dollface," he says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table, "when I give an offer, I never repeat it. Ever. Except, now, I _have_ repeated it. You turn me down this here time, yer never gonna see a lick of me again, no matter _how_ lucky ya say you are." Duncan points at her. "So you better think _real_ hard if ya wanna give this up a second time."

Courtney crosses her arms and crosses her legs at the knees. Her heart drums loudly in her ears.

"I _have_ thought about. Real hard, as you say. How do I know you won't ditch me again the next time you get me into bed?"

"You don't."

"So why the hell would I trust anything you say?"

"Because face it, doll," he says, "yer life sucks without me."

Courtney eyes him, and his compatriots. The woman eyes her distastefully. The man smiles at her encouragingly. Duncan's grinning like she's already said yes.

"You don't know the first thing about my life," Courtney says tensely.

Duncan smirks. "You underestimate how good I am at my job, baby. How'd ya think I knew to sit down at _yer_ desk at the bank? How'd ya think I found you? Here, today, on this train?"

She fidgets with her sleeve. "You got lucky," she guesses.

A door to the compartment clicks open. Duncan's partners discreetly reach for their guns as Cody peeks in.

"Everything ok-kay up here, Mister?"

"Peachy," Duncan says casually. "Thanks for fetching Mrs. Jones just now, and for pickin out her train for me back at the station. Al, tell 'em how thankful I am."

Duncan's partner walks over to Cody and puts a set of keys in his hand. "It's the green Ford parked around back of the Dallas station," he says with an earnest smile. "She's all yours, _amigo_."

Cody tips his hat at everyone in the room. "Have a pleasant trip."

Courtney stares after him as he leaves the compartment, shutting the door behind him. After a moment, she turns her attention back to Duncan, who is looking at her expectantly.

"Give me one good reason to believe you won't go back on your promise again," she says.

Duncan snorts. "Ya don't need a promise, babe. I could use a gun moll. You need a ticket out of yer life. That's just what I'm offering. Now stop playing goddamn coy and take it," Duncan says firmly, holding out his hand.

Courtney pauses a beat, then takes his hand without shaking it.

"I want my money and the suitcase you took from me in Chicago back," she tells him.

The case nudges against her shin under the table. "Done."

"And...I want a fair cut," she adds after a second. "Of any money stolen."

The woman partner scoffs. Duncan looks amused. "That's not a yes."

Courtney searches his eyes one final time. They're unreadable.

She doesn't need sixty seconds to weigh her options. She's had millions of seconds since they first met and the answer, however reckless, has always been the same.

Courtney shakes his hand.

"I'm in."

"That's more like it," he says, grinning. He retracts his hand to pull a gun from his belt loop. It's the same gun she'd stolen off him last they met. He slides it across the table to her and she catches it righ before it slides off. "If I like your audition outside of the bedroom, we'll see how _fair _a fair cut is."

"If _we _like her audition," the woman partner corrects. "We all know you'd use any excuse to keep her around to save you the trouble of paying for brothels."

"Play nice, Heather," the man says. He takes the seat next to Duncan and outstretches his hand to Courtney. "Alejandro Barrow, at your service, Mrs. Jones. You can call me Al, or Buck, whichever suits your fancy. My brother's told me all about you."

Courtney takes the hand offered, looking between the two men. Tall and bronze, Al doesn't look related to Duncan even in facial structure, but Courtney doesn't ask. Instead, she says. "A pleasure to meet you, Al. You can just call me Bonnie."

"If we're all done making friends," Heather intones, "maybe we can move this along?"

"Good idea," Duncan says, getting up and indicating that his brother do the same. "Me and Al will get the equipment ready. Be a doll, Heath, and bring Courtney up to speed."

The men leave the compartment and Courtney watches them go, confused. She jumps as Heather sits down directly across from her and slams her palms on the table.

"Listen up," she says. "I'm taking exactly one minute to humor Clyde's ridiculous penis driven idea of letting you join up. Then I'm saying to hell with it all and leaving you on this train with the rest of our targets to get on with my fucking life."

Courtney blinks. "You're...robbing this train?"

"Obviously. Like we'd come all the way back to goddamn Texas just to pick up a jane for Clyde."

Courtney stiffens at Heather's tone and sets her shoulders. She grabs the gun from the table confidently. "I know what I've signed up for," she says. "I'm ready to-"

Heather takes the gun from her waist and points it at Courtney with lightning speed.

"No, you're _not. _Do you know how much dough is on this train right now? Where it is? Can you even fire a gun?"

Courtney glances down quickly at the piece in her hands and Heather answers her own question. "Of _course _you can't. How about a Heat chase? You know how to escape one of those? Can you pick out which speakeasies might turn you over to the coppers? You even know how to get _in _a clubhouse?" Heather rolls her eyes. "You contribute nothing to this crew and you-"

"I know banks," Courtney interrupts, face hot.

"Really?" Heather's eyes go from piercing to mocking. "Where are the three exits to the North Carolina Federal Reserve? What lock does Kansas General use to store their valuables after hours?"

Heather pulls back the hammer on her gun. "Don't kid yourself, Bonnie Jones. You are here because you are a desperate, pretty face, and both Clyde and Al are suckers for desperate pretty faces. But guess who isn't? _Me. _So if you so much as sneeze a second late and jeopardize all our lives for your mangled death wish, I will put you down myself. And you are _sadly _deceived if you think Clyde will bat an eye at your 'accidental' passing."

Heather puts the gun back in waistband and stands. "When you hear Al's signal, follow me and do what I do. Shout at a few people, wave that thing around like you know what you're doing, but for god's sake, don't do anything as stupid as pulling the trigger."

As Heather leaves, Courtney finds her nerve. "I'm more than a desperate, pretty face, Heather."

"You're just noise until I see some action," Heather says. "And Bonnie," she adds, leaning against the door, gun back in hand, "it's not 'Heather', it's Mrs. Barrow. Alejandro is my husband. _Don't you forget it_."

There's a gunshot and a scream from the compartment next door, and Heather disappears out the door.

Courtney scrambles for her own gun, forgetting her book and her bag and her suitcases, forgetting Justin and Dallas and New York, and rushes out after Heather, cursing.

Like getting out of Texas was going to be the end of her problems.


	12. Safehouse

**Stray's A/N: My old computer broke down a few weeks ago, putting me way behind in work and MGB. Thanks to Ariel and all you guys for being patient as I reply to reviews and slowly get my life in order again ;)**

* * *

><p>"Can't you do anything right?" Heather shouts.<p>

"What?" Courtney can barely hear her over the combination of the roaring train, clicking down the tracks, and the blood pumping in her ears as she runs after the crew, past their previous cart where she snatches her suitcases. They end up in the cargo hold right behind the train engine.

Alejandro slams the compartment door behind Courtney and grabs luggage and boxes left and right to barricade. "Calm down, _amor," _he says to Heather. "It wasn't bad for a first timer."

"Well it wasn't good, either," Heather snaps.

"What did I do wrong?" Courtney asks, bending over at the waist, panting.

"Excuse me if I don't find it very intimidating when the person robbing me is shaking like a goddamn leaf," Heather retorts, taking Courtney's gun from her and putting it in her belt. "If one of those businessmen had been carrying a piece, we'd be Swiss cheese cause you couldn't point a revolver in a straight line."

"Bite me, Heath," Duncan says. He yanks on the cart's side door and pulls it open to rushing wind. "Ya'll comin' or what?"

Alejandro grabs an annoyed Heather's hand before Courtney can even think up a response, and the two of them jump out of the train. Courtney blinks for a second at where they were, before she stumbles to the door and looks down at the river far below them. She catches Heather and Al just before they splash under. She bites her lip and tastes blood.

Duncan grabs her by the waist as the train rattles angrily over the bridge. "Hope yer not scared of heights, doll."

"Is it...is this safe?"

He snickers and pecks her on the neck. "We'll find out soon enough. Ready? One...two..."

"Three," Courtney squeaks, closing her eyes tight, and jumps.

The wind rushes by for far too long and doesn't let her hear a thing. Next she knows, she's plunged into cool river water. Her shoes scrape the boulders at the bottom. With a suitcase in one hand and Duncan's hand around her waist, Courtney flails her way to the surface gasping for air. The press of Duncan's hand on her back pushes her to shore where she scrambles out on her hands and knees, her cotton dress transparent and heavy with water. Courtney crosses her arms to cover her chest.

Duncan mutters something about the goddamn fucking goddamn depression as he counts the paltry amount of cash in his hands, then shoves it back in his pockets.

"Let's get off the road and count up the loot," Duncan orders, squeezing out his pinstriped jacket as Al takes off his shoes. "What color car ya want today, Heath?"

Heather rolls her eyes, grabbing Duncan's jacket from him to cover herself. She points to one coming down the street. "Green's been all the rage."

"As you wish," Duncan drawls, pulling the gun from his belt and walking towards the street.

Courtney eyes them, but Al comes up beside her, holding out his own jacket.

"You'll get used to it," he says with a smile. "Here."

Courtney takes the jacket halfheartedly and watches as Duncan walks out into the middle of the road, dripping wet with a suspender hanging off one shoulder, and raises his gun at the approaching car. It swerves to avoid him and stops. Duncan walks over, gun still raised, and easily intimidates the driver out. He whistles and the four of them, soaked and loaded with bags of cash, clamber into the car. Everyone but Courtney fits in the front seat.

"Back," Duncan says, gesturing to the backseat. "Watch the dough."

"But why do I have to do it?" she asks irritably.

"Because yer last to the car and yer not driving," Duncan snaps. "Now get back there before the jobbie we just scared outa here decides he wants his car back enough to fight for it."

"Crew rules," Heather adds, smirking. "You'll get used to it."

The backseat is empty for the rucksacks and suitcases of cash and Courtney's pleasure alone. She climbs in grouchily and has to brace herself as Duncan peels off. The three professionals chat and smoke in the front seat, Duncan paying her no mind other than to reluctantly tell Al to hand her a lit cigarette when she asks for it. The swampland and small towns rush past her in the window, and she chooses to focus on that instead of the growing unease in her stomach.

* * *

><p>The safehouse isn't far. It's small white foreclosed house on the edge of a knotted mess of trees. As they grab their bags and get out of the car, Al goes to pick the lock on the front door.<p>

"What now?" Courtney asks.

Duncan and Heather ignore or don't hear her.

Al gets the door opened in about a minute and the three seasoned criminals head straight to the parlor. Once they pull the plastic sheeting from atop all the furniture, they dump their half filled bags of bills and light up more cigarettes. Courtney decides to look for a bedroom.

The first one she finds has nothing more than a bed and a dresser. She shuts the door and pulls the plastic cover off the bare mattress. It's a step up from the matress in Chicago but not by much. She shrugs off Al's jacket and peels off her soaked dress, only realizing then that she must have lost her hat jumping out of the train. She opens her suitcases to find that everything she packed was damp, including her notebook of clippings, her changes of clothes, and her money. Sighing, she climbs on the bed in her wet underwear, wraps herself in the uncomfortable plastic dust covering, and passes out.

She stirs when the weight shifts on the bed. Sleepily, she blinks her eyes open to find Duncan climbing in beside her.

"I was wonderin' where ya went," he says smoothly, brushing her hair back from her neck before planting a kiss. "Ya didn't say anything, ya little Minx. Shoulda figured ya wanted to be alone," he teases, his hand trailing down to pull off her panties. "After all, ain't that why you tried so hard to find me?"

She grabs his hand, stopping him.

"Last time we slept together, I ended up handcuffed and out to pasture," she tells him. "I'm not playing that game again."

"The fuck's the matter with ya, suddenly acting all pissy?" Duncan says. "Ya got me all hot and bothered for nothing."

Courtney turns to face him. He's in an undershirt and underwear, scowling.

Heather's words stick out in her memory. "I didn't leave my life and my husband to be your...call girl."

"But ya did leave yer dead fish husband," he says, breath smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, "pathetic sad sack of shit that he is."

"Don't talk about Justin like that in front of me," she says, all her hairs standing on end. "He's still my husband."

"And yer still his wife, but look at ya," he says, smirking, reaching down to pet between her legs, "here ya are in my bed."

Courtney grabs his hand and tosses it off, turning away and moving to the far side of the bed.

"Let me _sleep_, Duncan." She tucks the plastic sheeting under her chin and closes her eyes.

She hears him curse right before he shoves her off the bed.

"Damn bitch! This is _my_ bed. You either do as I say, or you find yourself another place to sleep."

Courtney glares at him viciously and picks herself off the floor. With all the dignity she has left, she grabs her wet clothes and suitcases and marches towards the living room which reeks of cigarettes, grabs the dusty afghan, and slings it over her as she flops on the hard couch.

Duncan appears over the back of the couch, glaring down at her. "Seriously?"

"Your terms, not mine," she says, turning away. "I'm not letting you anywhere near me until you can prove to me you're actually serious about this arrangement."

Before Duncan can reply, she adds, "I mean the arrangement of joining your little ragtag group of criminals. I already know your thoughts on our _intimate_ arrangement."

"Peaches," Duncan says, the word sharp on his tongue, "those ain't mutually exclusive. I let ya into this crew, you let me into yer pantyhose."

"Yeah, and you check out the next morning," Courtney covers her head with the afghan stubbornly. "I've heard this one before."

"Clyde," Alejandro calls from the other room, "not to interrupt, but we need to get up early tomorrow to clear out so if you want to move this somewhere more private…?"

"No," Courtney answers. "He was just leaving."

Duncan rips the afghan off her and takes it with him back into the room, swearing loudly. Courtney reaches for the discarded plastic sheeting on the floor and with a weary conscious, wraps herself in the thin crinkling plastic.

If these were Duncan Clyde's true colors, maybe it wasn't too late to get a refund on her old life. Or a discount on a new life altogether.


	13. Sights

Something sharply pokes Courtney in the side. She jolts awake, panicked, wildly looking around the safehouse parlor. Duncan's silhouette stands over her, two guns in hand.

"Get up," he says. "I ain't wastin' the night if yer not letting me jump yer bones. Yer learning how to shoot."

"No, I'm going back to sleep," Courtney tells him, laying back down and wrapping herself tightly in the plastic. "I'm still mad at you."

"Ya can't be mad at me if yer dead," he snaps. He yanks up the back of the couch and drops Courtney onto the floor.

"Will you two keep quiet or take it outside?" Heather barks from elsewhere in the house.

"Takin' it outside," Duncan calls back before throwing a dry shirt and the second gun at Courtney, indicating the door. "Don't make me come back and drag ya out," he adds, then walks out the back door into the moonlight.

Courtney glares at the door for a long minute before she snatches up the gun and fumbles to open the chamber. She does. Six bullets.

She puts on shoes, throws Duncan's shirt over her damp underwear, and walks out the back door.

In the moonlight, the house looks completely isolated. It's set up against a swamp forest on one side. The crickets chirp loudly.

"Where are we?" Courtney mutters as Duncan sets up some bits of trash on the fence posts around the perimeter of the house.

"Shreveport, Louisiana," he says. "Stand over there."

Courtney sloshes over in the inch or so of water that seems to be all over the ground.

"Is this really necessary at this hour?" she grumbles. Duncan ignores her.

"Do what I do," he says. He takes his gun out and holds a shooting position. Courtney sighs and looks at him over her shoulder. She sets her feet apart, puts both hands on the gun, and raises it to eye level.

"Like this?"

"See what happens when ya shoot," he says. "Hit that beer bottle."

Courtney mutters a swear but points the gun at the bottle and squeezes the trigger.

The kickback on the gun is unexpected. The gun recoils back so strong, Courtney hits herself in the cheek with it. The bullet doesn't come near the the beer bottle and Duncan is doubled over hollering with laughter.

"You are a new breed of asshole!" she shouts at him, holding a shirtsleeve to her bruised cheek.

Still laughing, Duncan walks over. "Well ya gotta admit ya had that coming, doll." He puts a hand on her. "Move yer shoulder like—"

Courtney jerks out of his reach. "Don't touch me. Just tell me what to do."

"Shoulders back," he says, still snickering. "Angle yerself to the target. Straighten yer knees s'more and try it now."

"Hell no," Courtney says, making his adjustments. "Not until I have it perfect."

"Yer not gonna get it right every time. Get used to firing with a fucked up stance and still hitting yer target. Now shoot."

Courtney aims at the target again and, bracing herself, squeezes.

The new position absorbs more of the kickback but the bullet still doesn't come near the bottle.

"You even looking down yer sights?" he asks.

"My what?"

Duncan groans irately. "This," he says, indicating the top of his gun. "Line this up with the tip of yer gun and yer target."

He raises his gun, looks down the length of it, and fires. A snuff box on the fence clatters loudly then sloshes into the swamp.

"Clyde!" Heather barks from a window of the house.

"Unless ya wanna come out here and teach her yerself, keep yer goddamn mouth shut, Heath!" he shouts back.

A window slams and Courtney says, "Why do we have to do this _now? _The bottle's too far and it's too dark for me to hit anything."

"If ya manage to hit one of these suckers, you can hit a copper for sure," he says, twirling his gun around his trigger finger. "People are larger targets."

Courtney stares at him. "People?"

Duncan looks at her, confused. Then annoyed. "Jesus Christ, Courtney, what didya think this job entailed? Pickin' flowers and sewing dresses?"

"I can't—Duncan, I'm not going to _kill_ anyone!" she stammers at him, "I didn't sign up for _that_!"

"Yeah, ya did," he snaps. "And ya will put a bullet in someone if any of our lives is on the line cuz that's what you _do _in a crew. Now shoot the bottle."

Courtney turns over the gun in her hands. She can see a few nicks on it in the moonlight.

"How many people have you killed?" she asks quietly, still looking at the gun.

"I've lost track," he snarls.

"Fifty? A hundred?"

"I'm going to kill one more if ya don't shoot that fucking bottle sometime tonight!"

Courtney meets his glare. "I'm not a killer," she says firmly. "I can be a thief and an accomplice and your gun moll, but I'm not a killer."

"Then guess what!" Duncan shouts, "Yer gonna have to be twice as good a shot as I am if ya wanna shoot someone and _not _kill 'em!"

Duncan snaps back to the firing line and fires singlehandedly, in quick succession, and knocks off every item of trash from the fencepost except the beer bottle. He opens his chamber and dumps six empty shells onto the ground.

"Now shoot. The goddamn. Bottle."

She watches the thin trail of smoke from the tip of his revolver catch the moonlight as it dissipates.

"Can I do that?" she asks. "Shoot and not kill?"

"Shoot the bottle," Duncan says, icily, "or go home."

Courtney turns from him, the shape of the revolver slippery in her sweating hands. She squints at the bottle in the distance, then glances at Duncan over her shoulder. He's watching her.

Slowly, Courtney takes a few steps closer to the fencepost. She carefully takes her stance again and lines up her shot. The bottle catches the moonlight. Courtney pictures the glint in someone's eyes and lowers the gun again. She walks closer, where it's clearer that the bottle is just a bottle.

Then she snaps the gun up and fires once, missing.

Breathing deep, she takes it a little slower, holds her arms steadier. Her trigger finger feels swollen from the heat. She fires again, misses again. She shoots at it twice more in succession, but neither bullet hits.

A rattling oil can splashes into the water by her feet and she jumps.

"That's six," Duncan says, lighting up a cigarette. "Reload."

Courtney grabs the oil can and opens it to find it full of an assortment of bullets. She opens the chamber of her gun and dumps six casings out into the swamp, then she starts rummaging.

* * *

><p>After ten agonizingly long minutes of picking through bullet after bullet, she finds only three that fit.<p>

Courtney throws the can back at Duncan who's just started on a new cigarette. She redoubles her effort, breathes deeper.

Her next shot grazes the bottle with a tiny _clink._

"If I asked ya somethin'," Duncan says, "would ya answer it honest?"

Courtney keeps her stance steady. "Would you?"

He snickers in the dark. "Maybe. I'd be straight if you were."

"Well I wouldn't know the difference if you lied to me anyway so what does it matter?" she mutters, laying on the sarcasm.

Flicking away his cigarette, Duncan walks over and looks over her stance. The cig makes a small hiss when it hits the water. "What would ya've done if I hadn't been on that train today?"

"I would have gone to see my sister in New York," she says.

"And then? Would ya have gone back to Texas?"

Courtney fires. "No," she says. "To Justin and no job and a smattering of friends who thought I was just a victim? No way."

Duncan makes a noise at the back of his throat and moves to fix her grip on the gun. She moves her hands out of his reach.

"Do ya wanna shoot the damn thing sometime tonight or not?" he snaps.

Reluctantly, Courtney puts her hands where she had them before. Duncan moves her left hand further under the gun. The touch is electric.

"Would ya have stayed with yer family in New York?"

"No, Bridgette's married now. It would be weird."

He snorts and walks around her. Closing the distance between them, he presses up closer behind her, his front to her back. He aligns their faces, cheek to cheek, and lines up her sights the way she's supposed to. Courtney keeps her flaring pulse from betraying her. Barely.

His mouth to her ear, he whispers, "Would ya have come looking for me again?"

"That's about five questions too many, Duncan Clyde," she says by way of answering.

He makes that noise at the back of his throat again. She feels it through her whole body. "Hit me with yer best shot, doll."

Courtney slowly lowers the gun. She steps out of the circle of his arms and turns to look him in the eye.

"Are you and Al really brothers?"

She watches as a tightness drains from his shoulders.

He grins. "Half brothers. Ma got around."

He doesn't fidget, or leer, or call her a pet name. So Courtney straightens her posture and asks, "Did you mean it at the bank when you asked me to come with you?"

"What?" Duncan smirks and takes a step towards her. "Dollface…"

Courtney takes her shooting position, aiming at his body mass. He stops.

"I learned my lesson in Chicago, Duncan," she says evenly. "I counted. There's exactly one bullet left and you're all out and I don't know if I'm good enough not to kill you yet." She pulls the hammer back. "Answer the question."

Duncan looks her over. Courtney waits, holding position.

"No," he says finally. "I didn't mean it."

A sharpness stings her eyes. Courtney rapidly blinks away the tears without taking her hands off the gun. She isn't crying in front of Duncan Clyde. She _isn't. _

When her voice is even, she says, "You said you never make an offer twice. Why did you?"

Duncan starts to pace around her slowly. She turns with him, keeping her shooting stance all the while.

"If ya ask me later, I'll deny everything. So listen up," he says. He takes a seat on a wooden stump nearby and pulls another cigarette from behind his ear, giving it a thorough inspection before lighting it up. Courtney takes a step closer.

"I _wasn't_ serious when I first asked ya. That's the truth, doll. You were easy on the eyes and plainly unhappy. I pride myself at getting girls in the sack, and knowing which girls I _can _get in the sack. Frankly dear, ya looked like hardly any effort."

He says everything matter-of-fact. She bites her tongue and waits as Duncan taps ash out of his cigarette. "Didn't expect ya to turn me down, but wasn't about to linger. I went about my life, had a couple other gals, wound up in Chicago. Where I found a pretty looking dame asking for me at a speakie," he smirks, "all dolled up, looking like a wet dream. So determined, and so fucking horny."

Courtney blushes through his laughter and tightens her grip. "Get to the point, Duncan."

Still grinning, he says, "You surprised me, Sweetcheeks. Following me from Dallas, seducing me, trying yer damn hardest to stick me up and blackmail me. Ya had gumption, something most gals are short on. I thought, hm, maybe there's something more to Missus Courtney Bonnie Jones after all." Duncan gets to his feet and stretches. "Anyway, I was in the market for a gun moll and yer wiles'll make ya a damned good addition to the team. Heath's a hellova gun moll but she can be as seductive as sandpaper some days."

Courtney tracks his movements. Her arms are beginning to hurt but she fights to keep the gun pointed at him. "Were you so desperate for a gun moll, you settled on the first dame who was willing?"

"I settled on _you_, baby. There's a difference."

"So why'd you turn me down?" Courtney asks. "Why'd you send me back to Dallas if you were going to take me on anyway? Why wait so long to find me again?"

He blows a large puff of smoke out his nose. "Had to cover yer sloppy tracks. Last thing I needed was yer dead fish hubbie hunting me down cuz he thinks I stole his girl." He tosses off the second cigarette. "Didn't think ya'd be so fucking green off the bat though. You really know _nothing_ about being a criminal."

"I'm learning mighty quick," she says, adjusting her stance.

"So ya are. Speaking of…" Duncan grabs her by the wrist and yanks her off balance, twisting her hand until she drops the gun. "...we're really gonna have to break this habit of yers for pointing guns at me." Courtney pulls to take her hand back but Duncan pulls her close. "Whaddya say we leave the rest of this lesson 'til yer gonna need it? I ain't putting another loaded gun in yer hands anytime soon and the night's still young."

He leans in to kiss her but Courtney shoves him off. "I meant what I said about not sleeping with you."

Duncan's amusement sours. "Damn, and here I was hoping that our lil heart-to-heart might've made ya reconsider." He releases her and picks up the can of bullets from the swamp. "Well, if ya change yer mind, ya know where my room is." He begins to walk back to the house. Over his shoulder, he winks. "Enjoy yer shitty couch."

Courtney watches him leave, pulling off his undershirt halfway to the house and glistening with sweat in the moonlight. When the door slams shut, Courtney holds her twisted wrist, muttering curses. After massaging her hands, bruised from kickback, she picks up her gun, watching the house and the forest behind it for any sign of life. The crickets keep chirping.

With a determined huff, Courtney sloshes out to the fence post with the bottle, points the gun at it, and shoots it point blank. It explodes in a shower of glass.

"Not counting it!" Duncan's voice calls from the house.

Courtney sighs. Then, awkwardly attempting to twirl the empty gun in her hand, she walks back inside to get some sleep.


	14. Pearls

**Rest in peace, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) on the 80****th**** anniversary of your death. **

**May your fearlessness outlive us all.**

* * *

><p>A few days later and a few miles closer to the Louisiana border, Duncan makes Courtney the getaway driver for their first official heist as a crew.<p>

"Yer shooting ain't nowhere near adequate for a job yet," he says, ticking off fingers, "Al's been itching to get back into action for a while, and if ya wanna be useful to this crew, you gotta get used to working every job: driver, distraction, and firepower."

Courtney carefully looks over the dashboard and steering wheel. She'd never been behind the wheel of a car before, especially not one of the fancy Fords that Duncan had a particular fondness for stealing. She grips the wheel and turns it slightly to get a feel for it.

"You _can _drive a Ford, right?" Heather asks as Al and Duncan load up their weapons from the trunk.

"Why don't you do your job and I'll do mine?" Courtney says, sitting up in the driver's seat.

Heather narrows her eyes and slams the driver door.

That had been half an hour ago. Courtney checks her watch and looks out at the grocery store. Al, Heather, and Duncan had been in there for all that time and all she'd done was sit in the car and fiddle with the controls, first cripplingly nervous then unbearably bored.

Glancing occasionally at the quiet grocery store, Courtney plays with the string of pearls she'd bought for herself with her share of the train heist money. They weren't even going to _give_ her a share. But she argued that she was extra manpower and after a lengthy fight with Duncan and an even longer fight with Heather, Duncan finally tossed some bills in her suitcase while she slept. She picked up the pearls in the next town they passed through.

While playing cat's cradle with herself for the fifth time, it suddenly dawns on Courtney that the reason for the quiet might be that Duncan Clyde and Co. are in trouble. She stops short. What was protocol for a plan gone wrong? Was she supposed to drive away without them? Was she supposed to go in after them?

Courtney turns the key back and shuts the car off. Wary for anyone watching, she slips out of the Ford and crosses the empty street to the grocery store. She flattens herself to the hot paint between the front door and window and, holding her breath, listens for noise inside. When it remains quiet, Courtney peeks over through the window.

The front door slams open. Her gang comes running out with their arms full of groceries and appliances. Al's carrying the whole cash register.

"Start the car, Courtney!" Duncan yells at the vehicle. Courtney takes a second longer to recover from the surprise, then she runs back across the street into the driver's seat, her pearls clattering.

"What the hell?" Duncan says as she jumps in after them. "Yer supposed to have stayed in the car!"

"I know! I know!" Courtney says, turning the key in the ignition, "I thought something bad had happened to you guys!"

The car doesn't start. She jerks it in again. Nothing.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?! Move over!" Heather orders, yanking Courtney aside and climbing into the driver's seat herself before jamming the key all the way in, turning it hard enough to snap, and starting the car with a jerky roar. She slams her foot on the gas and the car peels out.

"Why the fuck weren't ya in the car?" Duncan snarls from her other side, grabbing Courtney's arm. His other hand is holding a bag full of soup cans.

"You were taking too long!" she says. "I thought you were caught or something."

"If we're caught, that ain't yer problem!"

"Well what am I supposed to do if you just leave me in a car with no instructions other than 'just drive'?"

"Drive!" Heather and Duncan shout at her.

"Both of you, calm down," Alejandro intones from the backseat, adjusting the cash register on his lap. "It's her first heist."

"Her second heist," Heather corrects sharply, "and she could have gotten us all killed if the store owner had come after us guns blazing! You said you could drive a Ford!"

"I said I'm sorry!" Courtney snaps, pulling her arm free of Duncan. She looks back out the window as Heather puts distance between the heist and themselves. "Maybe if you left better instructions or actually taught me how to drive a damn car, I could do my job better!"

All three of them, even Al this time, turn to glare at her.

She catches their looks and backtracks. "I mean, I obviously know how to drive a car, I wouldn't just-"

Heather stomps the brakes. Courtney has to brace herself against the dashboard to keep from nicking herself against the windshield.

"Get out."

Courtney looks from Heather to out the window, at the long stretch of empty road and the open grasslands scattered with the occasional tree. "Are you crazy? I'm not-"

Duncan opens his door, grabs her, and yanks her out.

"If you can't drive, then you can walk," he says before getting in the passenger seat again. "The safehouse ain't going nowhere, which is more than I can say for us."

The car barrels off down the road.

Courtney blinks after it, the sun beating down heavily on the quiet road. Then she picks herself up, rips up the side of her cotton dress to run better, and starts chasing after the car.

* * *

><p>Not even two miles down the road, she goes back to walking. The road is burning hot, her shoes keep sticking to it and she keeps seeing mirages in the distant heat. Courtney turns back to the road behind her. The safehouse is at least five more miles and if a heat stroke doesn't get her, the cops swarming the grocery store not far behind her might.<p>

"Fuck you, Duncan Clyde!" Courtney screams at the empty road in front of her. "Damn you to hell," she mutters, wiping sweat from her brow.

She keeps trudging, checking the road in front of and behind her until one of the mirages looks decidedly like an oncoming car. Courtney stops walking and squints at it for a few seconds longer until she can hear it as well as see it. Messily, she tears the fabric of her cotton dress further up the side and with a forced poise, Courtney flips her hair back and flashes her leg out on the road. The car screeches to a halt beside her.

The redhead driver leans over to roll down his window.

"Afternoon, M'lady," he says, with a tip of his hat. "Do you need a ride?"

"That would be wonderful," she says, walking over to lean against his open window. "My boyfriend left me out here in this awful heat and I have no way to get home." Courtney reaches over and places her hand over the driver's own, still on the window crank. "Thank you for stopping for me."

He flushes for a moment before grinning and pushing up his glasses.

"It's my job to help out lovely gals such as yourself. Get in."

Courtney hitches up her dress and slides into the car without another word. She smirks when the driver doesn't take his eyes off her legs.

"Are you from around these parts, ma'am?" he asks, as he turns back onto the road.

"No, I'm from a little more out west," she says, "and it's Miss, not Ma'am." The driver is only slightly younger than she is. "Call me Bonnie."

"Well, Bonnie," he says, glancing over at her. "I was sure lucky to pick you up. Your jobbie must be out of his mind to leave you on the side of the road like this."

Courtney runs a hand through her hair. It's tangled and matted with sweat. "He was in such a bad mood," she says, "I must have upset him when he was already upset and the son of a-" she catches herself, "-dolt...decided to make me walk home."

She crosses her legs at the knees so that the ripped dress falls a little further open.

"Like I said," the driver repeats, glancing over at her, "out of his mind."

Courtney slowly rolls one of her pearls between her thumb and forefinger. "Got a smoke?"

"Sure. Glove compartment."

Inside the compartment are matches and a half full box of cigarettes. They're crammed in beside a toolbox and some neatly folded newspaper clippings.

"So, hero," she asks, lighting up, "what can I call you other than my savior?"

"Oh! Harold," he says. "Harold Hamilton."

"Hmm," Courtney hums, putting the matchbox back. "I like it," she says. "It has a nice ring to it."

Harold beams. "You're the first gal to ever think so!"

Courtney smiles back coyly. "Really?" she asks. "I'd think a sheik like you with a name like that would have gals hanging off his arms."

He blushes. Courtney smiles wider.

"No ma'am. Miss!" he corrects, adjusting his glasses sheepishly. "I, uh, don't get out much other than working in my Pa's garage. Not much hoopla in this town anyway. Though!" he adds suddenly, looking excited, "I just passed a grocery store swarmed with police and news reporters. You'll never believe who they guess robbed it!"

Courtney squeezes the pearl between her fingers hard enough to hurt. "Who?"

"Duncan Clyde!" he says. "You know of him? He's a legend! Never gets caught by the police, always has a quick plan and a fast getaway. And he's always driving the best cars!"

"I take it you're a fan of his."

"Got all his newspaper clippings," he says proudly, pointing to the glove compartment. He sighs. "It must be so exciting to travel from place to place, have all that money, do what you want when you want!"

Courtney rests her chin on her palm and stares out the window. "Not that exciting," she mutters.

Harold is quiet for a moment. "Sorry, Miss Bonnie," he says earnestly. "Criminals aren't really the kind of subject to be discussing with gals present. Where am I dropping you off?"

As he says it, he whizzes right by the safehouse, tucked by itself on the edge of the forest. Courtney hadn't been keeping track of just how fast they were going.

"Oh damn, that was it!" Courtney says.

Harold grins. "Want to see something snazzy? Hold onto something."

She hesitantly clasps the door handle and before they get much further, Harold switches gears and slams on the brakes, skidding, turning the car in a perfect U that flattens her to the side with the force. Without missing a beat, he's switching gears and on the gas again, driving back down the road at the same speed.

"That was...wow," Courtney says breathlessly.

"No one makes them like Mr. Ford, Miss Bonnie," he says, puffing up his chest. He pulls up on the side road to the house with a grin. "Here's your stop. Anything else I can do for you?"

Courtney glances at the house, looking for signs that Duncan and the gang are still in it. The car isn't visible, but the curtain by the front door moves ever so slightly. She looks over at Harold, who looks like he's already fallen in love with her.

"Harold," she says, grinning to herself, "would you like to _meet_ Duncan Clyde?"


	15. Driver

Harold's eyes widen. "_Meet_ him? You _know_ him?"

Courtney uncrosses her legs and fixes her hair. "Yes, I have the...pleasure of knowing him, you could say that," she says.

"Are you part of the crew? I didn't read about you in the papers," Harold says, pushing up his glasses.

Courtney presses her lips together and checks her makeup in the rear view mirror. "I'm a fairly new addition."

Harold beams. "I knew there was something I liked about you!"

Her hair and makeup are unsalvageable. Courtney smiles at him anyway. "Would you like to come in?"

"Would I?!"

Harold parks the car and dashes out, opening Courtney's door for her.

Courtney disembarks from the car and pulls a spare key from under a potted plant.

"What should I say to him?" he says as Courtney unlocks the front door.

"Don't say a thing," Courtney simpers. "Wait here."

She leaves the door partially ajar, closed enough to hide her guest. Scowling, she marches into the house, finding Al and Heather playing cards in the kitchen and Duncan poring over maps of Louisiana on the coffee table in the parlor.

"'Golly, Bonnie, we're so happy you survived your walk in boiling hot temperatures'," Courtney says loudly.

"Glad to see you made it back safely," Al says, looking up from his hand of cards. "I knew you'd be all right."

Heather plucks a card from the deck. "I was hoping you'd get run over."

"Ain't that the truth," Duncan adds. He shuffles two of his maps around. "Since yer up, get me some water."

Courtney doesn't move, just glares at the side of his head waiting for him to look up.

"I'm not getting any younger, doll!" he snaps, blindly gesturing at the kitchen.

Biting her tongue, Courtney fetches him a glass of water. Then, on a whim, she struts back into the living room and throws the water in Duncan's face.

Behind her, Al and Heather stop playing. The house is completely silent for a moment as Duncan slowly wipes the water from his face and raises his glare to Courtney.

"Bitch...these maps were _pricey_," he says.

Courtney throws the cup on the couch and puts her hands on her hips. "Everyone, there's someone I want you to meet. Harold, you can come in now."

The lanky boy all but rushes in, cap in his hands and grinning from ear to ear, staring at the gang.

Duncan, Heather and Al bolt to their feet, drawing weapons. Harold jumps back, his smile vanished. Courtney doesn't flinch.

"What the actual fuck?!" Duncan shouts. "Who is this skeeze?"

Courtney links her arms with Harold. "I would like to introduce you to Harold Hamilton," she says pleasantly. "He's going to be our new driver."

The four of them gape at her, the gang in indignant shock and Harold in elated surprise.

"Bonnie, you can't just add complete strangers to the crew," Al chastises, looking the least irked out of all of them, and still fairly mad.

Courtney pushes her hip out. She indicates a livid Duncan with a jut of her chin. "Of course I can. It's what _he_ did."

"_Chica_, this isn't the same, and you know it."

"We don't know the first thing about him!" Heather adds. "He could turn us into the coppers in the blink of an eye!"

"He's a desperate, pretty face, Heather," Courtney says. "And aren't you all suckers for desperate, pretty faces?"

"It would be my honor to—" Harold starts to say, but Duncan cuts him off.

"Just what the hell are ya tryin' to prove?" he snarls.

Courtney holds her head high and her gaze steady. "That I'm not just scenery to you people," she says. "That I'm vital and useful for the right things and that you're lucky to have me. So here," she nudges Harold in Al's direction, "I got you a driver. Take him out for a spin if you don't believe me that he's the best Ford driver south of the Mason-Dixon. I'm making myself a drink."

And with that, Courtney exits to the kitchen. She takes a whiskey bottle from the counter by the stove and takes a long drink straight from it, waiting. The conversation from the living room carries over clearly.

"...Best driver south of the Mason-Dixon, huh?" Al's voice says after a pause.

"Oh, no no no, your girl flatters me," Harold answers nervously. "I'm just—"

"I'm his girl," Heather corrects.

There's the click of a hammer being pulled back. "Courtney's mine," Duncan says.

Courtney grins around her next swig of whiskey. She hears the rustling of maps, then Duncan's voice continues, low and deadly, "Now find me the fasted way to get from here to here, and ya best hope I like yer answer."

The gunpoint interview in the kitchen goes on until the sun hangs low in the horizon. Courtney stays invisible, lazily drinking straight from the whiskey bottle in the kitchen. She stopped paying attention to Al and Duncan's questions and Harold's responses quite a few swigs ago. At long last, she hears the front door slam and an engine start. Duncan walks into the kitchen, looking sour.

"Al and Heath are taking him for a spin," he explains. "What the goddamn hell were ya thinking bringing him here?"

Swirling the remainder of whiskey around in the bottle, Courtney says, "It was practice."

"Practice," Duncan repeats without inflection.

"Yes, I got you a driver," she says, pointing at herself. "Me. By myself. Which means I don't have to stay sitting in a sweaty gross car while you and your in-laws do all the work and have all the fun. I'm coming down with your on your next heist."

"No way in hell," he says. "Yer too green, Courtney."

"You saw Harold! I had him eating out of my hand!" Courtney says, gesturing at the parlor. "If I can get the likes of big bad criminal Duncan Clyde and the likes of small town Harold Hamilton wrapped around my little finger, I can get any middle class bank teller or gas station owner to hand over their money without—hic!—raising a gun. It's what you hired me for, isn't it?"

She turns to the sunset and takes another drink. When Duncan doesn't answer her right away, Courtney glances back at him. He looks amused.

"Ain't you just something else."

He walks to her, takes the bottle out of her hand, and gulps a quarter of it down.

"Yer all out of screw-ups, Courtney," he warns. "Next time ya get left on the side of the road, I ain't gonna be able to convince Al and Heath to wait for ya to show up before we disappear again."

Courtney snatches the bottle back from him. "No, _yer_ out of screw-ups," she says, her Southern accent growing more pronounced. "Next time yer mean to me for no good reason, I'm leaving ya and starting my own gang!"

She drinks again and wipes the excess off on the shoulder of her ripped dress. Duncan smirks.

"Yer learnin' to drive tomorrow," he says.

"Good. And yer learning to take advantage of what you got."

Courtney shoves the whiskey bottle back at him and walks around him to go change for a night sleeping on the parlor sofa.

* * *

><p>The front door opens and wakes Courtney enough to hear Heather's voice saying, "This has gotten way out of hand."<p>

Between the heat, the running, and the whiskey, sleep is fighting to claim her. But Heather's voice keeps her intrigued. Courtney peeks an eye open; she can see only darkness.

Al says something in Spanish, his tone appeasing, but Heather snaps, "Don't start with that garbage at this hour. You know I'm right."

"Heather, love, the kid's a good driver. Besides, it's Clyde's call," Al says. Courtney hears him cross the parlor.

"It's not though, is it? It's _Bonnie's _call," Heather spits. "She waltzed him in through the front door. If we don't take him on, he'll go straight to the first clubhouse he finds and turn us in to the coppers."

Courtney keeps her breathing steady. The whiskey helps her not jump when someone kicks a bottle on the floor.

"The kid's a hell of a driver," Al says, "and Bonnie is doing her best."

"Her 'best' is going to land us all behind bars!" Heather hisses. "And neither of those things takes away from the fact that Clyde has been seriously off his game since he met her. For God's sake, Alejandro, he got himself caught and sent to Eastham!"

The color drains from Courtney's face. Eastham was the worst prison farm in Texas. Those who went to Eastham hardly ever came out, and if they did, hardly ever in one piece.

"That didn't have anything to do with Bonnie."

"Didn't it?"

Courtney cringes.

"Listen," Al says, sounding serious, "your brother-in-law is the sharpest cat I know. It takes more than an extra pair of gams and an over-eager driver to throw Clyde off his game for long."

Heather doesn't answer. It's quiet enough that Courtney can hear them breathing.

"She's going to get us killed," Heather says. "I'm telling you right now. If any of us takes a bullet because of her, the next bullet is coming out of my gun and it's going between her eyes."

Al sighs. He mutters something in Spanish that sounds like a curse.

"Talk to him," Heather says firmly.

"You talk to him. You're the one with the problem."

"He's _your _brother. And when have you ever know me and Clyde to have a civil conversation?" she says. "He always thinks I'm fighting with him."

"You usually are fighting with him." A kiss rings out in the dark. "It's incredibly attractive."

"You'd find anything I did incredibly attractive," Heather answers.

"What can I say?" Al murmurs. "The men in my family like them feisty."

They begin to kiss in earnest. A body thuds against the wall. Clothes rustles. A belt buckle clinks and pants unzip. Al groans. Courtney holds her breath and stays perfectly still.

Finally, she hears clothes shuffling again and Heather's footsteps start to walk.

"Talk to Clyde," Heather says again. "I'll be in the bedroom when you're ready for round two."

A door shuts and Al's footsteps shuffle to the kitchen. Courtney hears a lighter click and a bottle uncork but she falls back asleep before she hears the drinking.


	16. Crossroads

Courtney wakes up with a whiskey buzz. She stumbles into her ripped dress and brews some coffee, then grabs the keys to Duncan's stolen vehicle of the week and goes out to find the car. It's hidden in the trees behind the house, out of sight from the road. She unlocks it, gets in the driver's seat, and violently turns the key as Heather had done. The car rumbles to life.

Smiling, Courtney taps the gas pedal, but the car doesn't move. She grasps the gear shift and tugs it down little by little until it lands in the next position. When she taps the gas again, she almost backs into the tree behind her. Courtney slams the brakes, jerking herself and the car to a stop. Irritated and sweating in the stagnant air, she swears, puts the gear back where she found it, and glances around the dashboard.

She presses one of the buttons near the fuel gauge and jumps when Duncan knocks on her window, looking amused. Courtney glowers as he climbs in beside her, looking fresh as a daisy. He grabs the gear shift and moves it two settings.

"That's how ya put it in Drive."

"I knew that," she says. "I was just trying out the other functions until you woke up."

"Of course ya were," he says, easing back into his seat with a grin. "Get on the road."

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, in ninety five degree heat, Courtney hasn't made it further than a mile. Between the many car controls and shifting gears and Duncan's teaching methods, she's ready to wreck the car on purpose.<p>

"Alright, _now_ switch the clutch and hit the gas," Duncan says. Courtney switches the gear and wipes the sweat off the back of her neck before putting her foot back on the gas pedal. The car jerks forward and she slams her foot back down on the breaks.

"Stop being such a pussy and keep yer foot on the goddamn gas!" Duncan snaps.

"Maybe if you stopped _screaming _at me I wouldn't be so scared!" she snaps back. "I've told you three times now that I've never done this before!"

"And I've told ya twice to stop giving me bullshit excuses and drive! One more time ya touch the fucking brakes and I swear I'll clock ya over the head."

Courtney glares before pressing the gas pedal again, letting the car inch forward, ever so slowly.

"Great, now that ya've learned how to drive like my grandpappy, let's move forward," Duncan snaps, sweat bleeding through his wifebeater and button down. "Press the gas harder, and when ya get to the edge of that road, touch the brakes and turn the wheel all the way to yer left."

"We have a driver now, I hardly see why this is necessary," she mutters, letting the car drift at a snail's pace down the road.

"Yer the one that got up early for lessons, peaches."

"Which I'm sorely regretting right now."

"Too bad. Turn here."

Courtney presses the brakes and the car stops all together with a jolt that hurts her neck.

"I said touch the brakes not stomp them! Shit, Courtney! Ya tryin' to break our necks?"

She puts the car in park and glares at him. "You're acting like it's my fault I don't know this!"

"It _is_ yer fault!"

"Justin never taught me!"

Duncan looks away from her and starts yanking open the top few buttons of his shirt. "Well ya clearly never asked to learn, doll."

She stares at his fingers for a moment before looking back at the road.

Duncan smirks, reaching over and putting the car back into drive. "You can't fuck me if ya get me killed, darling."

"I already told you I'm not sleeping with you anytime soon," Courtney repeats as she takes her foot off the brake.

He chuckles. "Keep telling yerself that. Turn left at the crossroads. This road runs parallel to the main road straight through to Arkansas."

With a hand pushing hair out of her face, Courtney taps the gas with her toe and makes the turn painstakingly slow. "How do you even know that?"

Duncan reaches over and turns the wheel more sharply. "What kind of a criminal would I be if I didn't know every back road in the south and midwest? Any day ya want to finish this turn would be great."

Courtney takes the turn even slower to spite him. In front of them is a long stretch of straight open road.

"Great," he says, leaning back. "Now here, I want you to floor the car."

Courtney turns to him. "Excuse me?"

"What? Do ya honestly think yer grandma speed is going to cut it in a getaway? Stomp the gas."

"I've been behind the wheel of a car for all of half an hour!" she says, gaping. "I'll kill us both!"

"Do it, because I said so," he demands. "Floor the car!"

Courtney takes her hands off the wheel. "Fuck y—!"

Duncan grabs her by the knee, throws her foot on the gas, and slams a hand down on her leg, shooting them forward.

"Duncan!" she screams.

"Keep yer eyes on the road and don't let up until I tell ya!" he orders, expertly shifting the car gears with his other hand as they speed.

"But—!"

"Trust me!"

Courtney grips the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles pop. The car jolts and jumps on every small bump and cranny in the road but they keep going, at least fifty miles over the speed limit, and nothing happens. No crash, no other cars, no animals on the road. Just her and Duncan and the car and the rush.

After a couple seconds, she laughs a little. Then a lot. She leans forward in her seat and doesn't notice when Duncan takes the hand off her knee.

"Okay, we've only got so much gas, ya can stop now," he says. Courtney takes her foot off the gas to let the car slow until it rolls to a stop.

"That was incredible," she says.

"Faster ya go, straighter the car goes, more control you have," he says, chuckling. "Toldja to trust me."

"I don't trust you further than I can throw you," she tells him.

"Sure ya do," he grins, unbuttoning his shirt further. "We're partners now, ain't we?"

"Partners?" Courtney repeats, turning to him. The heat must be getting to her.

He makes a 'so-so' gesture. "Well, not fifty fifty yet. Eighty twenty until you can get over this squeamishness ya have for killin' and driving faster than I can walk with my pants down."

She rolls her eyes. "So you trust me enough to put a gun in my hand and put me behind the wheel of a car but not enough to split your loot with me?"

He smirks. "Bottom line is, _you _gotta trust that I ain't gonna leave ya high and dry and _I_ gotta trust you ain't gonna wake up one morning and change yer mind about all this."

Courtney sets her jaw. "I'm not going to change my—"

"Ya did it once already," he reminds her. "I turned ya down in Chicago and ya settled right back into yer old life without a backward glance. I got no guarantees ya won't do it again."

"Look who's talking about guarantees," she accuses. "You've left me out to pasture. Twice! First in Dallas, then in Chicago. How am I supposed to be your partner if you treat all this like a game?"

Duncan is quiet for a moment, looking her over. Then he says, "After Dallas, I was in the big house."

Courtney raises a brow at him. "I didn't hear about that in the papers."

Duncan stares at his thumb as he draws circles on the inside of his palm. "They didn't put it in the papers," he says. "They snatched me up outside our Dallas hideout after we left yer bank. Put me away in Eastham with a sentence of five years of which I did ten days exact. Heath paid off a guard to smuggle me a pistol and Al was ready with a getaway car when I made a break for it but, as ya probably figured, nothing's flawless."

He reaches down and pulls off one of his shoes and socks to show her his foot.

"Barbed wire," he says as Courtney covers her mouth. "Tricky devil."

She stares at the scarred flesh where three of his toes should be. Courtney takes a breath to keep herself steady, then says, slowly, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I ain't going back, Courtney." He puts his shoe back on, deliberately tying the laces. "Ten days in Eastham was two weeks too many. I ain't never seeing the inside of a prison again long as I live, and you should know what yer signing up for."

He straightens up and looks at her seriously. "This life ain't all perfect heists and big scores, doll. There's pictures of me plastered in every clubhouse from here to Missouri. I'm in this all or nothing so ya better be too." Duncan looks away from her, out at the road.

A lizard crosses the road, painstakingly slow. He stops in the middle, looks both ways, and decides to stay right there, sunning on the road.

"I tried to warn ya," he says, "back in Chicago, that you'd be better off with yer dead fish hubby and yer steady job. I'm a dead end, darling. Only desperate people do what we do."

Courtney is quiet, watching the lizard on the road.

"I was dying back there, Duncan," she says. "I was drowning in my old life."

"I know," he says. "We have that in common."

"If you—" she starts, stops, begins again. "If you...wanted to keep me out of this, then why'd you come looking for me on the train?"

Duncan sighs. "I think you know why."

The lizard seems to finally notice the car and scampers off the road. "Are we having this conversation because Heather talked to you?" she says.

The amusement flickers back behind his eyes. "Al talked to me, on behalf of dear ole Heath. She seems to think yer being too reckless. Thinks you ain't taking what we do seriously enough."

Courtney leans back in her seat to look at him. "What do you think?"

"I think I've just about had it with all this second-guessing bullshit," he says. He turns to Courtney and offers his hand, sweaty with the heat and the adrenaline and the confidence he just exudes. "What do _you_ think, partner?"

The corner of her mouth turns up a little as she considers. "I think you're just saying that because you want to get in my pants again."

Duncan smirks. "Maybe."

"Good," she says, and grabs his hand to pull herself across the bench seat and into his lap. She kisses him hard and pulls open the rest of his shirt. "Because I've been dying for an excuse to get in yours."


	17. Paris

Slick and exhausted in the Louisiana heat even though they'd stopped some twenty minutes ago, Courtney laps up a few salty beads of sweat from Duncan's shoulder.

"So," Duncan drawls, jostling Courtney in his lap to reach his pants on the car floor, "not going to sleep with me anytime soon, huh?" He pulls a cigarette box out of the pocket.

"Of course, it's just like you to ruin the goddamn mood," Courtney mumbles. After an hour of positioning and repositioning and keening and the dashboard bruising into her lower back, he should be grateful she's even still awake. "Give me one of those. I did all the work."

Duncan hands her a cigarette. She pulls back to light up, then moves her pearls so that they hang down her back and settles against his chest again, blowing puffs of smoke into the still air. Duncan's fingers trace circles on her hips.

"Funny, huh?" he says.

"What?"

"No clothes, and it's still hot as the devil's pit," he chuckles. "That's Louisiana for ya."

"I hate Louisiana," she says, dragging hard on her cigarette. "It's muggy and insanely hot like Texas. I wish we could go somewhere else. Somewhere more scenic."

"Like?"

She plants sleepy kisses on his neck and closes her eyes against his shoulder. "Anywhere. Everywhere. I wanna go everywhere."

Duncan moves one of his palms to the dip of her spine. "They ain't exactly selling maps to Everywhere, USA, darling. You do much travelin' before ya married yer dead fish?"

"No. Justin goes out on business trips every few weeks or so, for a few days. When we first got married, I stupidly thought I'd go with him." She tosses the remains of her cigarette out the window.

Duncan nuzzles her hair and says, "This ain't a desk job. Ya wanna go to St. Louis? Nashville? Kansas City? Name it. I'll swing it for ya."

"Hmmm, I want to go to all those places," she hums. "Every place in this country, every country in the world."

She feels the grin against her scalp. "Easy there, explorer. What do ya know about the world?"

"I know I want to go see the Eiffel Tower," Courtney says, straightening up, "because it can't really be as tall as the magazines say it is. And I want to go drive on the streets of Germany, and go running with bulls in Spain. And here!" she adds, balancing against his hips and gesturing. "I haven't seen the Statue of Liberty or been inside a department store or crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. There's so much I want to do, I couldn't possibly name everything."

Duncan looks at her and doesn't say anything. Just looks at her. She glances away.

"Okay, fine," Courtney says, plucking the limp cigarette from the corner of his mouth and smoking it herself. "Fine, you don't have to look at me like that. I have dreams. So sue me."

"It ain't that," he says fondly.

"What then?"

He puts a hand on the back of her neck and pulls her face forward until their foreheads touch.

"Just tryin to figure out how the hell ya managed to stay a housewife all this time," Duncan says, his eyes a brighter shade of blue. "Yer a firecracker."

Courtney kisses him. "Flatterer."

"We'll do all those things," he promises, taking his cigarette back and tossing it out the window. "Once you get the knack of this driving thing, we'll drive to Paris in a V8 Ford and I'll nab ya the Eiffel Tower."

She scoffs. "Now you're just making fun of me."

He grins. "Just wait, baby doll. You'll see the kinds of things I can do for ya."

Duncan reaches over and grabs his pants. Courtney takes them from him and tosses them into the backseat.

"You can start by showing me now," she murmurs.

* * *

><p>They get back to the safehouse at around the same time Harold does, pulling a suitcase from his backseat. He turns at the sound of their car.<p>

"Oh gosh," he says as Courtney shuts off the engine and hands the key to Duncan. "Thank goodness you're back. I didn't see the car when I got here and thought you'd changed your mind about hiring me."

"Ya kidding?" Duncan snorts. He slams the car door. "Yer still hired. You saw us coming up the road, right? Courtney can barely drive in a line, let alone in a getaway." Courtney rolls her eyes.

"About that," Harold hedges as Duncan brushes past him. He looks to Courtney. "I thought you said your name was Bonnie?"

"It's Bonnie to you," Duncan says and disappears smugly inside the front door.

"Don't mind him, Harold," Courtney says, gingerly stepping down from the car. "He's just cranky from the heat. You can call me Bonnie or Courtney, whichever you like."

Harold comes over to give her a hand. "Bonnie's what you introduced yourself as, so I'm sticking to that. Here, take my arm."

"Thank you, Harold," she says. Towards the house, she calls a little louder, "It's good to know there are some gentlemen left in this country."

A table's knocked over somewhere inside the house.

Harold gets her on her unsteady feet and doesn't let go. "Good thing the heat doesn't have the same effect on you, huh?"

"What makes you say that?"

The redhead blushes. The color crawls its way up his ears. "Well...it's just not even noon yet and close to ninety degrees and still...you're looking happier than a pig in a pigpen."

Courtney smiles and fixes a curl of his hair from under his cap. "Harold, you trust me right?"

"Sure, Miss Bonnie," he says, smiling back. "I mean, I gotta, right? We're partners now."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Al and Heather walk out to the Ford, packed suitcases and unloaded guns in hand. Al doubles back in to make sure they've cleared out every trace of their presence and passes his brother on the way out. Duncan has his suitcase in one hand and Courtney's under his other arm.

"Then trust me that we're going to be all right," Courtney says, patting Harold on the cheek. "From here on out, things look like they're going to be hitting on all eight."


	18. Automatic

For the first couple of weeks, Courtney learns how to shoot from Duncan Clyde and how to drive from Harold Hamilton. Duncan keeps trying to teach her the ins and outs of operating a car but Courtney finds she learns better with Harold, if only because their newest crew member practically idolizes her. Unlike Duncan, Harold never shouts at her when she hits the brake instead of the clutch. He also never derails her lessons by pulling off on the side of the road and taking off his clothes like some other people she knows.

Since picking up Harold, they have two successful robberies, small gas stations near the state line, but Duncan makes her stay in the car both times, "Til ya can figure out what a straight line is and how to drive and shoot in one."

"I'm getting better!" she insists, holding the car door open with her foot when Duncan tries to shut it. "And I'm already skilled at the other element of being a good criminal," she adds, running the same foot up the front of Duncan's pants.

He grabs her ankle and puts her foot back in the car. "Yer not going in there without a script," he says, shutting the door. His voice is muffled through the closed window. "And yer not getting a script till I'm sure ya know how to handle yerself if anything goes south. And that means shooting and driving."

Courtney rolls down the glass as Heather and Al meander inside the store and Harold chatters at the gas station attendant. "Duncan, I swear," she says, eyeing Harold, "if I have to sit in this heat and listen to one more conversation about the Yankees or the brilliance of Ford engines…"

Duncan leans through the window and pecks her on the lips. "He's yer driver, love. Yer responsibility. Just like yer mine."

"Just hurry back," she mutters.

Courtney starts dragging herself out of Duncan's bed late at night to go practicing on her own. No matter how exhausted she may be from a night spent tangled up with Duncan Clyde, she takes his spare revolver and their car-keys-of-the-week from his jacket pocket and tries not to wake anyone by accidentally wrecking the car or shooting too close to the house. In the Southern night humidity, she wears one of Duncan's breathable shirts and layers on her perfume extra strong to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Al joins her on a night she's having trouble shooting a snuff box at twenty yards.

"Can't sleep in this heat either, huh?" he jokes, sitting on a stack of firewood behind the shed of their Arkansas hideout. "You know, you might do better with a smaller gun like Heather's."

"I like this gun," Courtney insists, shooting and missing again.

"Just because my brother gave it to you?" Al laughs. "No offense to Clyde, _chica_, but he's not the weapons expert in this family. Hang on."

He goes inside and comes back out with Heather's smaller caliber pistol and a rifle.

"Try this. And don't tell Heather I let you borrow it," he says with a wink and hands her the pistol.

Courtney checks bullets, points, and fires. The kickback is much less severe and she knocks the snuff box sideways. With the next bullet, she knocks it clean off the fence.

"Huh," Courtney says, turning the pistol over in her hand. "Not bad."

Al chuckles. "I can pick one up for you when we pass through Tulsa."

"Thanks, Al."

He walks over to the fence with two firewood chunks and sets them up. "My brother teach you how to handle a Browning Automatic Rifle?"

"Not yet," she says, putting Heather's gun on the stump Al had just vacated. "Is it any different?"

"Oh, very. The BAR is frankly my gun of choice but they're mighty hard to conceal in discreet robberies."

He slaps in a cartridge, loads the chamber, and puts the gun in Courtney's hands. It's heavy and longer than her arm's length. Courtney holds the butt to her shoulder and points it at the logs.

"Not bad," Al says. "Sure you've never held one of these?"

"My grandfather fought for the Confederacy," she says, holding it just high enough to look down the sights. "I grew up with a dozen pictures of him holding muskets in my house."

"Well, a musket and a Browning aren't exactly the same. For one thing, besides the size difference, you don't need to load a Browning fifty times for fifty shots." Al walks around behind her and moves her hands further apart on the rifle. "And between you and me, there's nothing sweeter than the smooth _RATATAT_ of the BAR." He presses up close behind Courtney. Very close. "How does that feel?"

Courtney shifts. His sticky wifebeater crawls up her spine. "It, um, feels odd."

"Probably because you're not bracing it against your shoulder right," he says, adjusting the butt of the gun so that it's right where it should be. "Chest up," he adds. His hand brushes down her breast to lay flat against her ribcage. He pushes up and Duncan's shirt rides up her thighs.

Courtney drops the position. She steps out of his reach. "Maybe Duncan should be showing me this."

Al holds out his arms. "All right. If you'd prefer. You were just getting the hang of it though."

She hands the rifle back and pulls her shirt down. "I think I'm done practicing for tonight."

As she grabs her gun and walks back to the house, Al calls after her, "So you're aware, Bonnie, just because you think my baby brother hung the moon, doesn't mean he actually did."

Courtney buttons her shirt all the way up and says, "Goodnight, Al."

"Night, doll. You owe me one."

When the rapid string of _RATATAT_ rings out, Courtney jumps but doesn't turn around.


	19. Insurance

**Author's Note: **Thank you all so much for being patient with our rocky summer. MGB is back in business! All you gangsters and gun molls can expect bi-weekly updates on Fridays. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>On heist number three with Harold, Courtney can't take it anymore. While her crew crouches around the back of the car rehashing strategy and Harold baby talks the engine from under the hood, Courtney unlocks the passenger side door and slips out. She heads towards their target, a lone outpost on an otherwise completely empty stretch of Arkansas road.<p>

She's halfway across the road to the grocery store before Harold's voice calls, "Bonnie? What are you doing?"

Courtney doesn't turn or break pace.

"Courtney!" Duncan hisses. "Get the fuck back here before someone sees ya!"

"Just getting a refreshment," she calls, walking up to the front door and pulling it open.

The last thing she hears before the door shuts is Duncan swearing and Heather sneering, "Let her go, Clyde. She'll learn one way or the other."

First thing Courtney does is take stock of the store. It's smaller than their last two hits. The shelves are only partially stocked, and the owner, a portly blonde man, isn't very attentive. He glances up over his magazine at her arrival, tells her to ask if she needs any help, then resumes reading.

Courtney browses the aisles, divising her plan.

"Excuse me," she says walking over to the owner, "could you help me out with something?"

"Of course," the man says with a smile, putting down his paper. "Welcome to Owen's General Store and Gas. My name's Owen. What can I do you for?"

"Well see," she starts, looking upset, "my friends and I are trying to get to Chicago and our car broke down. Could you help us repair it?"

"Sorry, miss. I would but I can't leave the register." His smile vanishes and he sighs. "These are hard times on all of us. You can't be too careful."

Courtney tilts her head slightly, trailing her fingers across the counter. "Is there anyone else that works here that could, maybe, help us out then?"

"No one else here but me," he says. "Had to let my assistant go last week since there were so few people coming through here."

Grinning smugly, Courtney reaches for her handgun. "Then you wouldn't mind-"

She freezes. Her handgun's in her suitcase in the trunk of the car.

"What wouldn't I mind?"

"Um, you, uh...wouldn't mind some help?" she recovers. "I'm sure a store like this could use a few extra hands."

The big man chuckles. "I like you, miss. I appreciate the offer, but the fact is I wouldn't be able to pay you a cent." He slumps in his seat. "We're in a hell of a depression. Hard-working folks can hardly get by these days without having to resort to thieving."

Courtney puts a hand on her waist, just above the rip in her cotton dress, and starts to rap her nails on the counter. Owen doesn't know he's being robbed yet. Courtney could bluff that she has a gun and try to steal what little the poor man has to his name. Or she could walk back out to her crew empty-handed and embarrassed and without a lick of trouble.

Or she could improvise.

"Owen," she says, straightening up, "what's your connection to this place?"

"This is my store," he says, confused.

"Was it inherited? Long line of grocers in your family?"

"No, actually, I won it in a card game." He sounds disheartened. "Cost me what little money I had left to insure it and it costs me what little money I make to keep up my taxes so the bank doesn't take it back."

Courtney rests her arms and elbows on the counter, indicating that Owen lean closer. "Owen, because I like you too, I'm going to let you in on a secret." She takes care to enunciate her next words. "My friends and I don't really have car trouble, and we aren't really going to Chicago. My name is Bonnie Jones. I'm running with Duncan Clyde and the Barrow Gang. They're waiting outside to rob your store."

Owen blinks. "That's not a funny joke, miss."

Stepping back from the counter, Courtney gestures out the window. "See for yourself."

Owen paces to the end of the counter, pulls aside the blinds, and tenses. He grabs at something under the counter and next Courtney knows, she's staring down a double barrel shotgun.

"You're not taking my store," he says, all the warmth gone from his face. He pulls the hammers back. "It's all I have left. I'm not letting you take it!"

Courtney holds up her hands, her pulse drumming deafeningly in her ears. "Owen, look at me," she says, playing calm, "I'm completely unarmed. If I was going to let my partners rob you blind and leave you in the lurch, why would I tell you about it?"

He glares. "Is that another joke?"

Despite the fact that Owen is only the third gun she's had pulled on her in the last year, something about being on the _robbing_ end of the robbery keeps her breathing even. "I used to work at a bank. You said you had this place insured? A standard premium covers you in case of fire, flood, or natural disaster. Yes?"

"Doesn't cover robbery," he reminds her.

"No," Courtney agrees, lowering her arms slowly. "But you're right about times being tough. And hard-working folks like us gotta do what we can to survive. So here's an idea." She lets her arms rest by her side. "Hand over any cash you have left in your register, let us take some groceries for the road, and in return, we'll do you the favor of burning your place to the ground so you can collect the full insurance premium."

Owen eyes her through the sights, then lowers the shotgun slightly. "...How much money are we talking?"

"You signed a standard insurance plan with the state?"

Owen nods. Courtney does the math in her head and smirks.

"You're looking to triple whatever you paid for it in your card game."

With the shotgun still pointed in Courtney's direction, Owen surveys the dilapidated shelves, the partly rotten fruit, and the cracked soda dispenser in the back.

"So you're offering to help me commit insurance fraud," he states. "Which is illegal."

"It's only insurance fraud if you do it to your own property. And it's only illegal if ya get caught," she adds in a Duncan impersonation.

Owen shifts in place. "...None of this will come back to me helping you? Or conspiring with you or something?" He glances around. "I've never... If my mama ever found out I broke the law..."

"You'll be nothing but the victim," Courtney assures him. "In fact, call your former employee. Call any friends you have. Tell them you need help with the store and that they should come on by. They'll be witnesses that your store was robbed, looted, and burned to the ground by Bonnie and Clyde and the Barrow Gang and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it."

Courtney waits, watching the dust floating by the window as Owen considers. "What did you say your name was again?"

"Bonnie Jones, with an I E," she says. "And I work for...that is, my partner is Duncan Clyde, with a Y. For when the papers ask."

With a chuckle, Owen releases the hammers and puts his shotgun down on the counter.

"Well, Miss Jones," he says, "you have yourself a mighty fine deal." Courtney breathes a sigh of relief as Owen puts his shotgun back under the counter. "I'll go make those phone calls you suggested. You help yourself to anything left in the store."

"I'll have my team come in at the twenty minute mark," she tells him,

Courtney peruses the aisles while Owen makes his calls. She picks up a newspaper from the stand and flips through it. She pockets a pack of bubble gum and two cartons of cigarettes. When Owen comes back out and gives her an all clear, Courtney pulls a nickel from her change purse, grabs a coke, and walks out to the car.

Her crew sits, waiting. Harold looks worried, Heather annoyed. Al's playing with his lighter and Duncan is seemingly asleep. He wakes up with a snort when she gets in the passenger seat and slams the door.

"Well?" he asks.

Courtney grabs his wrist to check the time, crosses her legs, and sips her coke. "You're clear to go in and do your thing in about five minutes."

"What the fuck does that mean we're 'clear' to go in?" Heather asks.

Just as she does, Owen emerges from the store and walks over to the car. Duncan reaches for the scattergun in his lap but Courtney puts her hand over his.

"Here you go, Miss Jones," Owen says, handing her a minuscule roll of bills through the window, "that's all she wrote." He tips an imaginary hat at the gentlemen and Heather. "Ready whenever you are."

"They'll be right in," Courtney says and Owen goes back inside the store, whistling.

Duncan, Heather, Harold, and Al stare at her.

"What are you waiting for?" she says. "Go on. Go rob him. Get whatever groceries we need and burn the place to the ground when you're done."

Al and Heather exchange a look. Al shrugs, says something noncommittal in Spanish, and gets out of the car. Heather follows warily.

Duncan stays observing her. Courtney finishes her refreshment, tosses it out the window without looking at him, and lights up one of her new cigarettes. Finally, from the corner of her eye, she sees him smirk. He opens the door and follows Al and Heather out to the store without another word.

"...What did you do?" Harold whispers.

"My job," Courtney says, counting the handful of bills Owen had handed over to her. As a very theatrical ruckus starts up inside the store, she takes a five and sticks it in her bra before putting the rest of it in the glove compartment.

Other cars begin to arrive a few minutes later, just as Duncan and company emerge from the smoking store, laden down with groceries and dragging a wailing Owen. "My store! Oh, my store! You fiends! You children of the devil!"

They drop him off at the front steps as the other cars open and Owen's friends come to his aid. Al and Heather jump in the backseat with their groceries and Duncan slides in beside Courtney. Harold peels off.

After a mile down the road in total silence, Al says, "Ten years of doing what I do, and that was the damn strangest heist I've ever seen."

"I got lucky," Courtney admits, looking over the scratches in the dashboard. "I left my gun in the trunk."

"Ya got smart," Duncan says, putting an arm around her. He steals her cigarette for a drag. "You should be in moving pictures, doll."

Courtney leans against his side and snatches back her cigarette. "I bet you say that to all your gun molls."

Grinning, Duncan kisses her with a mouth full of smoke. "Not Heather."

From the backseat, Heather makes a disgusted sound. "Get a goddamn room."


	20. Fort Smith

"Shit," Courtney mutters, spinning in front of the safe house bathroom mirror.

"What? Did we not get all the money?" Duncan asks from the bedroom, counting Owen's small wad of bills and his bag of groceries.

"No, it's not that. I forgot I completely tore through this dress when you left me on the side of the road," she says, toying with the tear that stretched up to her thigh now. "I can't believe I was looking like this the whole time I was sticking up Owen."

"To be fair, you've been wearing that dress on and off for the last few weeks, Bonnie," Al says, leaning on the open bedroom door.

"The tear didn't use to be so bad," she argues, covering her legs when Al doesn't leave. "And it's not like I brought lots of clothes with me when you kidnapped me from the train."

Harold peeks into the room. "You were kidnapped?"

"Coersion ain't kidnapping," Duncan says, standing up and shutting the door in Harold and Al's faces.

Courtney sighs and appraises the dress again. "Great. So now I either wear scraps or nothing."

"I like it when ya wear nothing," Duncan says, coming up behind her and purring in her ear. His fingers graze the bare thigh exposed by the tear in her dress. "That's what ya get for wearing clothes meant for farm work or speakeasies with no in between."

"You know what's on our way to Tulsa?" Al suggests through the closed door. "Sol C. Cohn and Company in Fort Smith."

"What's that?" Courtney calls, tilting her head as Duncan dusts kisses on her jaw.

Heather scoffs from the parlor. "A halfway decent department store," she retorts. "Not that you and your cheap haircut and hick clothes would know anything about it."

"Why don't ya show her how to dress, Heath?" Duncan asks, smirking against Courtney's throat. He grabs both halves of the tear and rips the dress further up, past her waist. "Take her on a grand ole tour of Cohn and Co."

"Tell me you're joking," Heathers says as Courtney grumbles, "Are you serious, Duncan?"

"Who better to teach Bonnie how to dress than you, love?" Al says. "Let's drop you off at the department store and pick ya up, say, in an hour or two?"

Harold knocks lightly on the bedroom door. "Do you want me to start the car?"

Kissing down Courtney's collarbone, Duncan mumbles, "Sounds keen to me."

"That's the worst idea either of you have ever had," Heather tells the brothers.

Courtney shifts in Duncan's arms. "Can't we just go shopping, you and I?" she whispers.

"Babe, ya just robbed a convenience store, single-handed and unarmed. You can manage a shopping trip with one Mrs. Barrow."

Courtney lightly pushes him off. "It's easy for you to say. You're not shopping with her."

Duncan pecks her on the lips and slips a ten into her hand. "I'm a 42 in suits and a 9 in shoes. Pick something out for me. I'll like whatever it is."

"To Sol C. Cohn and Company then," Al says. Courtney hears the keys jangling. "We'll double back for you two ladies once we've got taught Harold here how to jack a car. How's that sound, Harold?"

"Swell!"

Courtney opens the bedroom door to find Heather at the other end of the parlor, blowing out a heavy cloud of smoke and rolling her eyes. "Whatever."

* * *

><p>"Oh hell no. Not that one," Heather says, putting the dress Courtney had just picked out back on its place on the rack.<p>

"You've had _something_ to say about everything I've picked up so far," Courtney snaps.

"It's hardly my fault you lack any taste," Heather patronizes, tossing another dress onto the growing pile being carried around by their shopping attendant.

Courtney pulls the dress off the stack of clothes and throws it to the floor, to the concern and confusion of the shopping attendant. "You know what? We're on the same goddamn team, Heather! The sooner you accept that the better we can put up with each other."

"Pick that up off the floor. You're not a savage," Heather retorts, blotting at her teeth with her finger before holding up another dress to her body in the mirror. She grabs a pantsuit off the rack and tosses it at the attendant. "Try that one on. It should work with your train wreck haircut."

Courtney touches up the ends of her bob. "Will you stop making fun of my hair? Yours isn't even up to date. Waist length hair went out of style years ago."

"Please," she scoffs, "I make my own style. Alejandro's been trying to get me to cut it for years."

"Why?"

"Same reason. Out of style. Gets in the way of robberies when I need to shoot something in my peripheral, blah blah blah." She tosses the attendant a pencil skirt and blouse, ignoring the woman's wide-eyed stare. "Try those on too."

Courtney grabs the clothes from the pile, bold green colors in the skirt and a crisp white blouse. "How is this going to stand out any less than what I was wearing before?"

"For one thing, it's better quality. And these outfits are sure as hell more practical." Heather slaps a matching green hat on Courtney's head and shoves her and the attendant in the direction of the changing rooms. "Now go try those on so I can do some shopping of my own."

Courtney shuffles off towards the changing rooms with the very silent attendant, admiring the department store as she walks. They take the wooden escalators to get to the changing rooms to see to it that the skirts and tops are properly fitted. After Courtney tries on Heather's picks and waits for her adjustments, she walks through the store, admiring everything from the perfumes to the kitchen appliances. It's a small city with whole floors dedicated to clothes and jewelry and children's toys. Finally, she makes her way back to Heather.

"Hey," Courtney says, noticing a dress on the hangar. She pulls out the red beaded piece, an almost identical copy to the one she'd bought in the seedy store in Dallas. "I used to have a dress like this," she tells Heather.

"This one is much more classy," Heather says, pulling out a black dress embellished with lace. She tosses it at Courtney. Courtney takes the red beaded dress as well and hides it from Heather under the black one.

"Hurry up. We have to get to the seventh floor before the boys come back."

"What's on the seventh floor?" Courtney asks.

"Every beauty product you ever wanted," Heather says with a dreamy sigh. She tries on a hat in the mirror before shaking her head and tossing it back on the mannequin. "If you think we're going shopping every week, think again."

"Alright, alright, stop rushing me. We haven't shopped for Duncan and Al. You haven't even tried on anything."

"Don't need to," Heather says, picking up a dress that's far too skinny for Courtney. "I already know what I look good in and what my sizes are. I'll just grab my things on the way out."

Courtney huffs, hustling as Heather walks to the escalators. "For someone rushing me through my first department store, you seem to know a lot about shopping and how to do it."

"Los Angeles has a department store on every street corner," Heather says, walking up the escalator. Courtney rides it standing in place, refusing to rush up the technological marvel.

"When did you go to California?"

"I'm from Los Angeles." Heather gets off the escalator and starts walking off before Courtney has even reached the top.

Cursing, Courtney climbs the last couple stairs if only not to lose her guide. "Is that where you met Al? Or did that happen after you started a career in crime?"

Heather rolls her eyes. "Bonnie, please. Stop trying to bond with me. It's pathetic and very obvious."

"You should really stop being such a bitch to me," Courtney snaps. "We're practically sisters-in-law and—"

Heather stops in the middle of examining a shade of rouge, looks at Courtney incredulously for a second, then starts laughing.

Courtney blushes, and adjusts the clothes in her arms. "What?"

"Oh god," Heather says, sobering up as the make-up attendant behind the counter looks between the women. "That's the funniest thing I've ever heard you say, Bonnie. Number 60 for me," she tells the attendant before pointing at Courtney. "Number 73 for her."

"I don't know why that idea is so hilarious to you," Courtney snaps as the attendant goes to get the makeup.

"Bonnie Jones, if you think that Duncan Clyde will keep you around once he's had his fun indulging your rebellious housewife fantasy, then you have another thing coming."

Courtney puts her clothes up on the makeup counter and crosses her arms across her chest. "Well that's where you're wrong. I'd sooner give up a life with Duncan Clyde than stop being the rebellious housewife," she says.

"You keep telling yourself that," Heather says noncommittally.

"I mean it," Courtney says. "If the choice is making it out on my own without Duncan or going back to Texas, then I have what it takes to do just that."

"Your voice becomes more irritating when you bluff, you know that?" Heather picks up a small sample container of rouge and puts it in her blouse pocket. "Did you bring your gun this time?"

"It's in my purse. Why?"

Heather discreetly pulls out her own handgun and checks bullets. "You ready to rob something larger than an outhouse?"

"_Really_, Heather?" Courtney says. "We don't need the money."

"We always need the money. That's the thing about money."

Courtney picks the pair of dresses back up in her arms. "Well do what you like. _I'm_ going to grab a suit for Duncan, _pay _for the clothes I'll actually wear, and wait for our ride."

Heather looks her over. She scoffs, puts the gun away and snatches the rouges from the attendant's hand.

"You are absolutely zero fucking fun."


	21. Poems

Courtney Jones wakes up to the sun in her eyes. The same way she wakes up every morning, with the damn sun in her damn—

She bolts upright, panicked, wild.

But the open curtains... They're white, unlike the beige shutters her house in Texas used to have. And dust coverings rest on most of the furniture in the room, a token of the safe houses she'd been staying in the last few months.

And instead of an empty bed smelling like Justin's cologne, the window casts light on Duncan to her left, stretched haphazardly across the bed, asleep. The suit pieces spread around the room are pinstriped and black, not the greys and blues Justin wore.

Courtney gets up and jerks the blinds closed with a snap. She returns to sit on the bed and hold the sheets over her mouth and nose, shuddering, hyperventilating. As sure as her name is Courtney Jones, she tells herself, she is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is in a foreclosed estate on the outskirts of the city. She single-handedly robbed a store in Arkansas two weeks ago. She is a criminal and an accomplice of Duncan Clyde. She isn't back in Dallas, Texas. The last four months haven't been a dream.

She fights to breathe deep. Lying back down, Courtney watches Duncan sleep beside her, the windows casting him in strips of sunlight and highlighting every plane of skin. She runs a hand across the muscles of his back and the tendons of his arm. She traces all his scars, some with stories he's shared, some as enigmatic as the rest of him.

Once calm, Courtney gets up again. She wraps the blanket at the foot of their bed around herself in a makeshift dress and grabs a pen and the blank notebook she'd sneaked out of a general store a few days ago. After peeking out of the bedroom to make sure the others aren't up, she walks out to the terrace to get some fresh air. On the porch, she sits cross legged, opens the notebook, and stares at it.

What does she write? How does she prove to herself or to the world that the last few months have been as real as the rest of her life before? She taps her pen against her teeth.

"Mornin'."

Courtney turns around. Duncan is standing at the back door, half-awake and wholly disheveled, not a stitch of clothing on him.

"Morning yourself," Courtney says and adjusts the blanket under her arms.

Duncan snickers. "Don't get modest on my account, doll."

"If you say so," she jokes, letting the blanket sag a little more down her back.

"I do say so," he says, grinning, and sits down behind her.

She leans back into his warmth and tucks her head under his chin, then pulls the notebook back onto her lap and starts writing. Duncan yawns and doesn't say anything as she scratches across the page.

"I didn't know ya wrote poetry," he says when she puts down the pen, looking over her handiwork.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," she answers. "I haven't written any in a long time anyway."

"Why not?"

She shrugs. "I lost the inspiration when I got… well, when I ran out of things to say."

He bites the shell of her ear. "Read me some."

"I haven't written any in a really long time, Duncan," she jokes, "and don't pretend you haven't been reading it over my shoulder anyway."

"I'm half asleep and easily impressed. Go on."

Courtney laughs.

"You've been warned." She clears her throat.

"I left my old home for the city  
>To play in its mad dizzy whirl,<br>Not knowing how little of pity  
>It holds for a country girl.<p>

There I fell for the line of a henchman,  
>A professional killer from "Chi";<br>I couldn't help loving him madly;  
>For him even now I would die."<p>

Courtney stops, setting the book down. "It's very rough. I'm still toying around with that rhyme with 'die', and I think I want to add more of an introduction to it. Not to mention the start of that second stanza has has an extra syllable..."

She feels Duncan lean forward to peck the corner of her lips. "Yer so beautiful."

"So you've told me," she says.

"I mean it," he murmurs. Duncan pulls the blanket away and turns her in his arms to face him. His hands move to her jawline and he presses a kiss to her throat. She closes her eyes.

"I once met a gal from the country," he says, his kisses trailing down to her collarbone, "and she was anything but tame. From the moment she found me, I was dizzy with this dame."

Courtney takes his hands in hers and lowers herself down to the blanket, grinning. "Go on."

Duncan climbs atop her and presses her firmly into the wooden floor with his weight. "Her legs were like highways," he says, smiling mischieviously. "Miles and miles of Georgia peach skin. God stopped listening when I'd pray, cuz she was my new favorite sin. Or somethin'."

"Hmm," she says, running her nails through his hair. "Not bad for a first poem. Your syllable count could use some work."

"Ya better write it down," he mutters, kissing his way down her stomach, "'cause that's the last one yer ever gonna hear coming outta my lips."

"So all those times I catch you writing when you think I'm asleep," she teases, "you aren't working on your poetry?"

"Nope, just my love letters to Mr. Henry Ford for building the dandiest getaway car a less-than-legally employed cat could ask for."

"You and Harold both," she snickers, stretching her arms over her head. "You should consider marrying the man. I would understand."

Duncan lightly bites at her hips. "Would ya now?"

"So long as you don't take up poetry and quit your day job, darling."

Duncan kisses his way back up to the hollow of her throat. "Ain't planning to, doll." He spreads her legs, smirking. "My day job is way too fun."

* * *

><p>Afterwards, Courtney revels in the slow burning pleasure. Unlike her usual messy and fast climaxes, she rides this one for long minutes, even after Duncan finishes and lays down beside her with the wind blowing through his hair. He runs his hands over her hips, stopping every so often and kissing her head.<p>

"Duncan?" she says.

He makes a sound of approval, and she shifts her weight on the blanket to better look at him.

"I know you think Bonnie is a little girl's name, but you know the name doesn't bother me. Everyone calls me that except you."

Duncan yawns and spoons behind her. "Yer name's Courtney," he says into her ear. "I'm callin' ya by yer name."

She rolls her eyes, but nestles into his arms without further argument, using his bicep as a pillow.

"Can I ask ya something?" he says. He takes her left hand in his and holds it up to the sun. "Why do ya still wear this stupid thing?"

He twists her gold band around her ring finger and it catches the light. Courtney withdraws her hand and holds it to her chest.

"It's...good luck," she says. "Last time I ever took it off, I went to find you and you left me in the wind. Now I'm superstitious."

Duncan chuckles, takes her hand in his and twines their fingers. He hums in her ear, "I'm toying with the idea of getting ya one myself soon, so don't get too superstitious."

A mockingbird in a nearby tree makes a sound like a car horn.

"...I'm not sure I want to marry you, Duncan Clyde."

Duncan stops playing with her fingers. He props himself upon one elbow. "What? Why not?"

Courtney scrunches up her toes and looks for the bird, avoiding his eyes. "It's not you. It's just… I've been married once already and it didn't turn out too great for me."

"Peaches, I know yer not dumb enough to think I'd be anything like yer dead fish husband."

"I know, I know," she says, turning to him, "but what would it change between us?"

"Nothing," Duncan says, looking down at her. "We'd be just the same, 'cept it's official."

"Exactly. So it's just a ring you'll probably steal and legal paperwork that can be used to track us. Other than that, it's exactly what we've been doing all along, am I right?" She puts her hands on either side of his face. "Why bother?"

Duncan doesn't answer; Courtney squirms under his gaze. The mockingbird alights on the railing and chirps out an actual melody.

Slowly, Duncan lowers himself back down beside her. "I wanted to make an honest woman out of ya, but I can see I've come too late," he says. The joke sounds forced.

Courtney pushes away and turns to him. "Why does it matter to you suddenly whether we're married or not? Just because Al and Heather have rings and we don't doesn't mean what you and I have doesn't count. And just because Justin and I had rings doesn't mean that what we had did count!"

"Jesus Christ, I'm sorry I brought it up, okay?" Duncan snaps.

"Why do you want to marry me anyway?" she demands. "Is doing everything you want whenever you want me to do it not enough for you anymore? You have to own me too now?"

With a groan, Duncan rolls onto his back. "Jesus Christ," he says again.

Courtney breathes deep. She breathes so deep, her lungs hurt from the stretch.

"Look, I just…" She rubs her eyes. "I had a bad start to my morning. Can we not talk about this anymore? Can we just sit here and enjoy the fucking nature?"

He huffs but doesn't move, doesn't look at her. Courtney sighs.

"I'm sorry," she says, nestling against his side. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout."

"If ya say so."

They're quiet for a long time, listening to the wind on the wheat fields as the sun climbs higher into the sky.

"I love you," she says into the skin of his shoulder. He has an angry scar there he hasn't told her about.

"I know," he answers, kissing the crown of her head. "I figured as much."

There's a sound of shuffling inside the house and a muffled clatter. Courtney jumps and sits up, Duncan following suit. She takes the blanket back and wraps herself in it.

"Another day, another heist," he groans, standing and pulling her to her feet. "You ready?"

"Does it matter?" she says, picking up her book and pen.

Duncan pinches his brow, his expression between annoyed and resigned. "If yer being pissy about this marriage talk, fine, but if ya think this is going to be too much for ya, doll, ya gotta tell me now-"

"Could you hold me?" Courtney whispers, stepping up to him.

He opens his eyes, still holding the bridge of his nose. After a beat, Duncan opens his arms and lets her settle against his chest. He wraps her in his arms as she holds the blanket up to herself. She listens to the drumming of his heart as he rubs her back until it slows and hers slows too. The mockingbird sings a final note and flies off.

"I'm ready now."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Courtney's poem is an excerpt from "The Story of Suicide Sal" written by the real Bonnie Parker. Duncan's line about the "dandiest getaway car" is a quote from a letter written by the real Clyde Barrow to Henry Ford. For all you Bonnie and Clyde historians out there, have you spotted any other of our Easter Eggs in MGB? Let us know!


	22. Tulsa

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the lateness, my internet was down the whole weekend.

* * *

><p>"I don't like it," Heather says. "Grocery stores and gas stations are one thing, but a bank? There's no way she can handle it."<p>

Courtney stashes Duncan's spare pistol in the waistline of her skirt. "For the fiftieth time, I used to work in a bank. Even if I hadn't, after four month with you all, I think I know more or less what I'm doing."

"You sure?" Harold asks from the driver's seat. Their car maneuvers through the streets of downtown Tulsa at a steady speed, testing the escape route. "Because it's really no trouble to wait with me in the car again…"

"The woman says she's ready, then she's ready," Al says. He pulls a box of bullets out from under the backseat and offers them to Courtney along with the smaller pistol he'd gotten her their first day in Tulsa. "I have the utmost faith in you, _chica_."

Courtney doesn't look at Al when she takes the box and the gun.

"I still say Alejandro and I should have given this a seal of approval before we tossed her a brand new piece and told her to have our backs," Heather says from the front seat, pulling Al's Browning Automatic out from its hiding spot between the door and her seat. She tosses Duncan the second BAR they'd picked up as Courtney loads her new gun.

"I _just_ gave it my ok, love," Al repeats.

"Ah, yes," Heather says sarcastically, "I completely forgot how despite the fact all of our lives are on the line, this isn't a democracy of any kind."

"Enough! Both of ya," Duncan says, taking the box of bullets from Courtney. "I say she's in, she's in."

Heather sighs. "Like I said."

* * *

><p>The four load up as Harold drives them to their prime position.<p>

"Remember, no sleight of hand this time," Duncan says to Courtney as he finishes loading his rifle. "We get in, have the tellers give us the money from the registers, and get out."

"No vault?" she asks.

Duncan shakes his head. "Not worth it this time, doll. We're carrying heavy ammunition in the middle of a crowded city. The cops are going to be on us the second we get in the door. We got to be in and out faster than they are."

"If you're trying to get me rared up, it's working," Courtney says, grinning slyly.

He grins back and pecks her on the lips. "Good. Let's go."

Duncan steps out of the car and holds his hand out to Courtney. She gets out and leans against him like they practiced. Her body hides the shape of the BAR.

The bank is twice the size of the one she used to work at, bigger than any of their targets before. Duncan had said that if they pulled this off, they'd all head up to Chicago to celebrate.

Courtney puts one foot in front of the other and focuses on her lines. Heather and Al hang back in the car as Duncan opens the door for her.

"Knock 'em dead, doll," he whispers and kisses her on the cheek as she passes him.

Courtney walks in and takes stock of the room. Marble floors and high arching ceilings. A dozen tellers standing behind protective steel bars. About seventy customers, divided in lines. The bankers in a separate room, up the marble stairs and to the left. No coppers. Two desks but only one secretary by the door, her old job.

It's Courtney's job to give the signal. But there are so many people. The bank looks too big to be robbed by just four criminals. Courtney's pistol digs into her hip.

The blonde secretary looks up from her writing, eyes tired, and says, "Welcome to Tulsa National Bank. Do you need assistance today?"

Courtney counts to three in her head. Now or never.

"Yes."

She pulls her pistol out and fires two shots at the ceiling. Screams ring out. Duncan bursts through the doors, rifle raised, shouting that everyone lower themselves to the ground.

"If ya'll want to live," Courtney calls, laying her accent on thick, "I suggest ya give us yer money." She points her pistol at the secretary.

The woman holds her hands up and stands. "H-How much do you want?"

"All of it, ya dolt," Courtney mocks, batting her blackened eyelashes at her. "And I suggest ya make it snappy. My partners ain't in the most patient mood today."

The doors slam open again as Heather and Al run in, Al with his BAR and Heather with a pistol in each hand. They each carry a few empty burlap sacks. Al stays to barricade the door and Heather knocks a patron to the floor who isn't getting on his hands and knees fast enough.

"Why don't ya come 'round that desk and help me out?" Courtney says to the secretary as Heather tosses Courtney a few empty sacks. The woman shakily does as Courtney tells her and Courtney hands her the sacks with her free hand. While Duncan points his weapon at the row of tellers and Courtney trains her pistol on her, the secretary holds the bag out to the tellers who start filling them with stacks of money.

"Hey, kitten," Duncan says, "ya know how ya can tell a copper from a regular ole jobbie?"

He turns from the teller and fires at a man on the floor reaching for his belt. The short string of bullets ricochet off the tile near his head. Everyone jumps. Women scream.

Courtney smirks. "Don't let 'em play hero, baby."

Duncan pecks Courtney on the lips. "Don't let 'em skimp on the money."

He winks then walks over to kick the gun away from the man on the floor as Courtney pulls out her other revolver, the one that was Duncan's spare. She points one gun at the teller and the other at the secretary despite not knowing how to shoot left handed.

"Move it along. Hurry up, we ain't got all day," she says firmly.

At the opposite end of tellers, Heather walks over with her pistol trained on the patron she'd knocked down before. She throws him her own sacks and starts him on the tellers.

The secretary finishes one bag of cash with three tellers and hands it to Courtney. "Please," she whispers, tears streaming down her face, "please don't hurt me."

Courtney takes the bag of money from her and tosses it to Al at the door. "Keep doing what yer doing and-"

She notices the woman's hand and stops.

"How long ya been married?" Courtney asks.

The woman fumbles with the second bag. "Please...please don't…"

"Keep doing what yer doing and answer the question," Courtney orders.

The blonde womans opens the second bag and holds it out to another teller to fill it up. "T-Two years."

Courtney snorts. "Yer husband approve of you working?"

The lady gives a small nod.

"...Really?" Courtney says. "He don't mind that ya work? At a bank, even?"

"It's the only job we have," the woman says. "Tyler got laid off from the factory last month. I hate it here. But we have so many bills... I can't lose this job."

Courtney looks her over. Thin and tall like the star of a moving picture, wearing clothes that hid rather than accentuated her figure, her blonde hair tied into a messy bun. "What's yer name?"

"Lindsay. Please don't hurt me..."

"Speed it up over there, Bonnie," Al calls in a deceivingly calm voice. "We're on a timetable."

Courtney ignores him, her eyes narrow on the secretary. "What's so terrible 'bout this job, Lindsay?"

Lindsay looks to the teller as he hastily fills the bag. She doesn't answer, but before Courtney can prod, she whispers something.

"Speak up so I can hear ya."

"Everything," Lindsay says, looking deeply into the sack of money. "I...I want to stay home with my little boy. He stays home with Tyler now, but I miss him so much..."

Lindsay squeezes her eyes tight, trembling. Courtney looks her over. She points to the next teller to start putting in money.

"If ya hate it so much, then leave," Courtney says. "Get another job or go home to yer kid. What's stopping ya?"

"It's easy for you to say," Lindsay mutters. Her eyes dart to Duncan then back to her bag. "You don't have to look at your child's face when he tells you he's hungry and there's no money for food. You and your husband have all the money you could want."

"He ain't my husband," Courtney says, glaring. "He's my... We're _partners_. And if he'd come here 'stead of Dallas... If he'd come to ya like I'm coming to ya now, and told ya he could take ya away from yer awful job and give ya a chance at happiness..." Courtney stops, momentarily losing the gun moll act. "You wouldn't do it. Would you."

Lindsay closes the bag and hands it over without meeting Courtney's eyes. "What kind of woman would do that?"

Sirens sing out in the distance.

"That's our cue, doll!" Duncan says, snatching a half-full bag of money from Heather's hands. "Time to go!"

Courtney recollects herself and points her pistols at Lindsay and the teller with renewed determination. "Dump the rest of it in then kiss the ground like the rest of 'em."

The teller dumps a last handful of money, then he and Lindsay get on the ground. Courtney tucks her second gun away to hold the sacks. She looks down at Lindsay and pauses.

"Maybe you're just in the wrong line of work."

Duncan grabs her arm and Courtney runs for the door with her partners. Just before she exits, she turns back inside.

"Ya'll have just been robbed by Bonnie and Clyde and the Barrow Gang," she announces and makes a small curtsy. "Have a nice rest of yer day."


	23. Bureau

Courtney grabs onto her seat for dear life as Harold drives the car at full speed down harrowing back roads and sharp turns, the Tulsa police in hot pursuit.

"Left!" Duncan shouts, twisting to look behind them, bracing himself for the turn. "It's not far now!"

Harold jerks the wheel, the car skidding on the dirt road. The state line sign appears, bidding them farewell from Oklahoma, and Harold somehow makes the car go even faster. As their Ford barrels over the state line, Courtney watches the police cars come to a screeching stop, halted by an invisible wall at the state line.

Al cheers. "That's what I'm fucking talking about!"

Courtney's breathing hard, giddy with adrenaline and light-headedness. "That was amazing driving, Harold!"

Harold beams and takes his foot off the gas a little. He turns to the back seat. "How much we make?"

Heather is gleefully tearing through the bags, estimating with Al's help, "We've got half a grand, easy!"

"Are we rich?" Courtney asks, turning to Duncan with a grin about to split her face in half. "Does that mean we're rich?"

Duncan pulls her into his lap and kisses her so hard, it strains her neck. "We're sure as hell richer than we were this morning! Ha!"

They make it back to the hideout and count their money, splitting shares. Courtney gets the biggest cut she's gotten since being on the team and afterwards, when Al, Heather, and Duncan step out for celebratory cigars, she takes Harold aside privately.

"I need you to do me a favor," she says, pulling him into the bathroom.

Harold glances around. "Um, Miss Bonnie, I know we may have some feelings towards each other, but Clyde..."

She cuts him off, waving off the idea of both of them in the bathroom. Instead, she reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope. "I need you to go back to the bank and leave this envelope on the secretary's desk."

Harold takes the envelope and looks it over. "What's in it? Why me?"

"Don't worry about what's in it," she explains. "You have to go because you're the only one people didn't see. Also," she adds, grinning, "don't tell the others, but I want to see what kind of media coverage we're getting. Who's reporting our story and all that."

The redhead driver doesn't look convinced. "What if someone recognizes me?"

"No one saw you, Harold."

He glances out the door and whispers, "What do I tell Clyde?"

"Leave that to me," she says, nudging him. "Run this one favor for me and I'll take care of the rest."

"All right, all right," he appeases, "I'm going."

Harold walks out of the bathroom first and Courtney waits for him to leave the house before she comes out of the bathroom herself and goes to find Duncan out back.

"So, what are you going to get with your share?" she asks, throwing her arms around his neck.

"Hm, some nice Cuban cigars," he says around the one in his mouth. He puts his hands on her hips. "Some fancy Tennessee bourbon, and maybe some new skivvies for my best girl."

"I'm gonna start saving up for a ticket to Paris," she says, dancing her hands down his chest, "and I'm going to get myself some new skivvies for my best guy, too." She starts undoing his belt buckle, smirking. "Not that I need lingerie, of course."

"Of course."

Duncan plucks the cigar out of his mouth to kiss her. She revels in the taste.

"Gimme three minutes to finish this baby up and I'm all yers, kitten." He turns her towards the door and slaps her ass.

"It might take me longer to count through all my money again," she jokes over her shoulder, sauntering to their bedroom.

* * *

><p>Harold doesn't return for hours. Lying in bed with Duncan, Courtney can't sleep. She told the others that Harold had gone out for groceries but she hadn't expected that he'd still be out at this hour. If he didn't come back… If someone did recognize him…<p>

She hears a car pull up in the driveway and sighs.

"For Christ's sake, did ya send Harold to Mexico to get our damn groceries?" Duncan mutters, not as asleep as Courtney had estimated.

She pecks him on the lips and gets out of bed. "I'm going to ask what kept him."

She doesn't get the chance before the front door slams open and Harold starts hissing, "Get up! Everyone, get up, we have to go!"

Duncan jumps out of bed and beats Courtney to the door.

"What's the matter? What's wrong?" he demands, switching on the parlor lights as Al emerges from his room, his BAR in hand.

"The coppers are onto us!" Harold hisses, yanking his suitcase from under the sofa.

"That's impossible," Heather says, stepping out of her room in a nightgown. "We're out of Oklahoma, the state patrol can't follow us."

"You don't understand!" Harold says, frantically packing his own suitcases. "The Bureau know who we are! They're putting together a special team just to come after us!"

"On what charges?" Heather demands at the same time Duncan asks, "How do you know all this?"

Harold casts Courtney a fleeting look before saying, "Well I went back to the bank because-"

"You _what_?!"

Duncan picks up Harold by the collar of his shirt and slams him into the wall. "You dirty rat! Are you out of yer goddamn mind?! They could have followed ya right to us!"

Courtney rushes over. "Put him down! It's not his fault! I sent him back there."

Duncan's glare swivels to her as Harold gasps, held a foot off the ground.

"I told him to go back and find this out," she says, pulling on Duncan's arm. She doesn't mention the money she'd given him in the envelope for Lindsay. "This is good for us to know."

Duncan doesn't look convinced. He turns back to Harold. "How do I know you didn't just lead them right to us?"

"No one followed me!" he says desperately. "I swear!"

"Then why are ya in such a hurry to get us out of here?"

"We're still awfully close to the state line, Clyde," Al says, putting a hand on his brother's shoulder. "If they've got an interstate patrol after us..."

"It's the middle of the night, no one's after us yet," Courtney says, still holding onto Duncan's arm. "Put him down. I'm sorry, I should have asked you first."

"Yeah, ya should've," Duncan snaps and drops Harold to the ground. He goes into their shared bedroom, swearing and knocking a suitcase loudly against the wardrobe. Courtney helps Harold up.

"The Bureau can't trail us across state lines for no good reason," Heather says again, glaring at Harold. "What's got the G-Men on our tails?"

Harold shakily finds his footing. "It's got something to do with the Ford," he says, "the one we've been driving the last couple weeks. They know what it looks like and the feds are reclaiming it on behalf of Arkansas."

Al swears in Spanish. "That's all the reason they need to chase us through state lines."

"No shit!" Duncan barks from inside the room.

"We should all pack up," Courtney says quietly. "I'll go talk to him."

She leaves Al, Heather, and Harold in the parlor and walks back to the room where Duncan is breaking down one of his custom shotguns and tossing the pieces angrily into his suitcase. Courtney doesn't say a word; she watches from the door.

Duncan tosses aside a suit to wear, gets all his things together, and slams his suitcase shut, breathing heavily.

"So what's the plan?" Courtney says, pulling out her own suitcase and setting it up on the vanity. She begins folding her clothes and calmly packing up her makeup and guns.

"The plan," he answers, "is that I call in a few favors in Joplin and we lay low for a while."

"Oh. So we're not going to Chicago anymore, then?"

Behind her, Duncan says, "Chicago's too hot now. Too many big names and too little space to maneuver."

Courtney nods and neatly folds one of the olive green shirtwaists she'd bought with Heather. It covers her new pistol in her suitcase and nestles beside her lacey skivvies.

"What were ya _thinking_," Duncan demands suddenly, "sending _Harold_ back to the crime scene? Why?!"

Courtney pulls out a pantsuit to wear and packs her notebook of clippings. A few of them, specifically the one from Owen's store, mention her by name. She keeps those at the front.

"I wanted to see what kind of news coverage we were getting," she says.

Duncan scoffs and Courtney rounds on him before he can go on. "It worked in our favor, didn't it? We have insider information now. We're not in the dark about who's onto us."

"We would've found out in the papers tomorrow morning," he argues.

"And if tomorrow was too late? If we were too close, like Al said?"

"The Feds don't know jack shit about us or they'd be up our asses already."

"So we're fine then. We're ahead of the game and we're all safe and on the road again. Yes?"

"That's not _the point_, Courtney!"

She puts a hand on her hip and leans against the edge of the vanity, waiting.

Duncan exhales sharply through his nose. He comes over and holds her by the shoulders, his eyes imploring. "Courtney, just _tell me _next time, okay? Don't make me hafta predict the coppers' next moves _and_ yers too. Surprises make me pissy."

"I've noticed."

Courtney shuts her suitcase.

"I promised ya we'd go to Chicago if yer first bank heist went well," he says, his breath warm on her skin, "and I'll keep that promise. We'll have to go a little later, is all."

She says, "Joplin won't be as exciting as Chicago."

Duncan presses his cheek against hers.

"We'll make it exciting."


	24. Lightbulbs

The Joplin safehouse is unusual, as far as their safehouses have gone. It's an apartment in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Nannies walk strollers down the street in broad daylight while children draw in chalk or play stickball on the sidewalks.

"What kind of safehouse is this?" Courtney mumbles as they pull into a driveway in their newest Ford, a V8 B-400 Convertible that Duncan and Harold had scoured for across the whole county. Harold hadn't had a chance to drive it yet because Duncan had yet to get out from behind the wheel.

"Well," Al says as he gets out of the car to crank open the garage door, "it isn't a safehouse _exactly_."

"This is our apartment," Heather explains. She puts on her hat as she readies to get out of the car. "Alejandro and I legally own this place. Not under our real names of course, but it's still ours."

Duncan backs the car into the garage, and Al cranks the door shut. They disembark. Courtney reaches for her bags, but Duncan grabs her hand. "First, the tour."

He takes her through a door that leads into a quaint kitchen with a working icebox. The furnished parlor is spacious, with rocking chairs, a sofa, and a fireplace. It leads into three rooms, one for each couple and one for Harold so he doesn't need to sleep in the parlor, and a bathroom connected to the master bedroom with a tub. Courtney turns the handle and water gushes out. It's the first place in months that has had both electricity and running water.

"Grand, ain't it?" Duncan says, wrapping his arms around her stomach. "Care to test it out?"

He kisses her neck and she laughs. "How long are we staying?"

"Long as we need to," he says. "We're off the books and out of our pattern. We sent the couple who rent it from Al and Heath on a _long_ vacation."

"I want to see the town," Courtney announces. "Let's get everything out of the car and go see what's what in Joplin. We'll get some groceries and supplies." She kisses him. "Then we can relax."

"Hm," Duncan kisses back, smirking, "I'm only agreeing 'cause it means more drivin' in the new Ford."

"Unbelievable. You're nine years old."

* * *

><p>Heather and Al decide they should <em>all<em> go into town. They park the car behind a butcher shop and Harold goes about stealing a Missouri license plate for them, just like Al and Duncan had taught him to do. The couples split off to do their own errands. It's the most private time Courtney's had with Duncan in broad daylight in weeks. Even then, they're careful to dip their heads when passing police officers directing traffic.

"So?" Duncan says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Where ya wanna go to first?"

They come across a hardware store and decide to start there. Duncan wants to take advantage of a decent place with steady electricity and get some nice light bulbs for the house. As Duncan browses the different types of bulbs and filaments, Courtney meanders over to a glass counter with multiple types of folding, collapsible cameras.

"I see you found the good stuff," the store attendant says, chuckling.

Courtney smiles back and sits on her heels to get a better look at the cameras. "I've never handled one of these before. Is it complicated?"

"Complicated?" the man chuckles. "Why, not at all. Cameras have come a long long way since I was a boy. These days, anyone with two hands and enough film can manage a camera. Watch."

He pulls out a sleek six-by-nine box that unfolds into a lense and body. "With the Jiffy, you just point and click. You still have to hold it for a second but there's no hassle with powders or stands. A working camera for the working woman. Give it a try."

Courtney picks it up and looks at the man through the lens, bringing him into focus. Then she turns slowly, finding Duncan in the lightbulbs section, meticulously going through bulbs like there was a noticeable difference between any two of them. She puts him in frame, his pinstriped suit mirroring the pattern of the pipes and wires behind him, the rounded shapes of the bulbs contrasting the angles of his face.

Courtney puts the camera down and pulls bills from her purse, turning back to the attendant. "How much will this get me? In terms of camera and film?"

The man counts the money. "That'll get you the camera and about three rolls of film. I'll throw in a case too, if your jobbie's buying as many lightbulbs as he looks like he's going to."

"That's perfect," Courtney says, grinning. The man shows her how to load the film and tells her where in town she can go to get it developed. He puts it all in a bag for her and Courtney walks over to join Duncan, kissing him on the cheek.

"A lightbulb is a lightbulb, Duncan," she jokes. "Shove a handful in your pockets and let's go."

"I take my cars, my liquor, and my hardware very seriously, doll," he says, squinting at the inside of a bulb.

Courtney sighs and waits as he finally decides on a type and size of bulb and then purchases a quarter dozen.

After a few hours of meandering around Main Street picking up odds and ends, they walk back to the car where Harold is slowly cranking the roof down.

"So whaddaya think of Joplin?" Duncan asks, loading his lightbulbs and Courtney's camera in the trunk along with groceries for the week.

"It's nice," Courtney admits. "Nothing out of the ordinary though. Didn't see any bars or speakeasies or whatnot. I can't believe Al and Heather would want to live here."

Harold finishes cranking and reaches the driver side door at the same time Duncan does.

"But you drove her all the way here!" Harold whines as Duncan glares down at him.

"And I'm gonna _keep_ drivin' her, capiche?"

Harold mumbles and shuffles into the front seat on the other side of Courtney. He pulls out and unwraps a deck of cards from his pocket. "Ever learn how to play blackjack, Miss Bonnie?"

Al and Heather return to the car about ten minutes later laden down with shopping bags, a few tanks of gasoline, and, surprisingly, a guitar case.

"Did you two clear out a department store?" Courtney asks as they go to load the bags into the trunk.

"Alas, chica," Al says with a secret grin. He lifts a case of beer out of one of the bags so Courtney can see. "Just liquor and ammunition."

"So what's in the guitar case? Another Browning?"

"No, actually, a guitar," Heather says. "If we're going to spend heaven knows how long laying low, I figured we should have decent entertainment."

"I don't know how entertaining I'll be, _amor_," Al says, getting into the car himself. "I haven't played guitar in a long while."

Duncan pulls out from behind the butcher shop as the butcher exits, dumping the remains of his kills in a trash bin.

"Joplin ain't looking so bad now, huh?" Duncan asks Courtney, tipping his fedora cordially at the butcher. "See? We can keep busy 'til we're clear to get on the road again."

"Maybe peace and quiet will do us some good," Courtney sighs. She blows a kiss at the policeman in the intersection who narrows his eyes at their car and squints to read their liscence plate as they pass.

"Well don't blow yer wig with excitement."

"Ha ha."


	25. Pictures

**A/N: Merry Christmas gangsters and gun molls!**

* * *

><p>Courtney fiddles with her new camera, holding it up to her eye and looking around the room. Duncan hunches over, smoking and contemplating his cards; Al swirls whiskey around in its container, watching his brother's expression; Heather deals the communal cards with lightning precision; Harold leans over Al's shoulder, then Heather's, sneaking peeks at everyone's hand.<p>

Courtney puts the four of them in focus and snaps a shot. Then she sets the camera to the side, sighing. Duncan looks up.

"What's got yer panties in a twist?"

Courtney leans against the back of the couch. "I want to take pictures."

"Yer takin' pictures," Duncan says, focusing once more on his cards.

"Sometime today, _hermano_," Al goads.

"I want to take nice photographs. Of all of us," Courtney says wistfully, "so we'll look like moving picture stars."

"Doll, ain't nobody gonna confuse me for Clark Gable," Duncan says firmly, but she catches a hint of a smile on his face at the idea.

"Not looking like that they won't," Courtney says, leaning over and running a hand through his hair. The shagginess was more apparent now that he didn't have his hair slicked back. "Let me give you a haircut."

Heather snorts, shaking her head. "Oh please. This coming from the southern belle who took a steak knife to her split ends."

Courtney ignores her, her fingers moving down Duncan's back, lightly working out kinks. In his ear, she whispers, "Al has two aces, you're losing this hand anyway."

Duncan eyes her, then his cards again, before folding. "Whatever," he says gruffly.

They go to the bathroom and Courtney has him sit at the edge of the tub so she can wet his hair. She grabs some scissors from the kitchen and starts taking experimental snips.

"Watch how short you cut it," he warns.

"Who usually does your hair?" Courtney asks, trimming the unruly strands coming over his ears.

"Let me know when she shaves you bald, Clyde, so I can swoop in and rescue you!" Heather calls from the parlor, snickering.

"Guess," Duncan mutters.

Courtney grabs a magazine from the parlor and has him hold it up so she can mimic the haircut on it. In the end, it doesn't look half bad.

Duncan runs his hands through it a few times and says, "Well, it's not as hot as it was before."

Harold compliments him on the haircut as Duncan takes his cards back from their driver and gets back in the game. Courtney snips the scissors teasingly from the door of the bathroom.

"If we're taking pictures, we all need to look fresh. Who's next?"

"Heather is," Al says casually, putting down a card.

Heather gives her husband a shove without looking up from her cards.

"Not in a million years."

"_Amor, _listen to me. Be practical. Long hair is so-"

"Don't even finish that sentence."

"Not this crap argument again," Duncan groans, folding his hand and rubbing his eyes.

"_Bella_—"

"I said no."

"I am _sick_ of this fight, Heather," Al says, glaring at his wife. "You're always so focused on your fashion, and your appearance. _Eres demasiado vanidosa!_ It's not good for you! You're getting it cut."

"I am not." Heather shrugs.

"If you don't, Heather—!"

"You'll what? Divorce me?"

"Maybe I will!"

"Fine then. Good luck finding another woman that puts up with your level of bullshit."

Alejandro yells in frustration, leaving the room and cursing under his breath in Spanish. Harold tentatively picks up Al's cards and takes his place in the game as Duncan clears his throat, lighting up a fresh cigarette.

"Heath."

"Don't even fucking try it, Clyde."

"Courtney needs a haircut too."

Touching her hair tentatively, Courtney mutters, "Well, I don't think it's—"

"Fine." Heather tosses down her cards and stands. "We're the ones that have to look at her anyway."

She pulls Courtney back into the bathroom and grabs the scissors from her hands. When she puts Courtney's head under the sink to wet her hair, she holds her there just a little too long.

"I'll cut my hair when I goddamn feel like it," Heather mutters, sitting Courtney on the edge of the tub. "Too vain my ass. He's the one that needs his suits pressed and ironed before he wears them. He can take care of his own fucking appearance if he thinks it's so vain."

Heather yanks at Courtney's hair. Courtney grits her teeth.

"Uh, do you want to talk about it, Heather?"

"_No._"

Heather finishes up with the haircut faster than the hairdresser had. Courtney figures out the blow dryer in a few tries and looks at herself in the mirror, finally getting the gist of what Heather meant about her previous haircut being a lopsided wreck. When she tells Heather as much, the woman smirks.

"Now you're a desperate, _prettier_ face."

* * *

><p>After giving Harold a haircut too, which involved some experimenting with his naturally curly hair, Courtney sends the boys to get dressed and bring the car out of the garage. As they do so, she and Heather apply their makeup. Courtney glances over as Heather puts some balm over her lips.<p>

"Could I borrow some of that?" Courtney asks.

"No," Heather says, smacking her lips. "Steal your own makeup."

There's a knock on the open door and Al pushes it open a little. "Car's up front."

"Wonderful," Heather says, not taking her eyes off her reflection. "Bonnie, be a dear and sweep up the floor so we don't slip on any stray hairs."

"I'm not your maid," Courtney snaps.

"No worries, _chica,_ I'll do it. Could you fetch me the broom?"

Courtney glares between Heather and Al, takes a second longer to finish her mascara, and side-steps by Al to go retrieve the broom from the kitchen. She snatches it from behind the ice box. Returning to the bathroom, she stops just outside when she hears Al and Heather talking.

"I can't believe you'd embarrass me like that," Heather hisses. "You already knew what my opinion would be, what's gotten into you?"

"Well maybe I'm just goddamn sick and tired of having this argument, Heather. I wish, for once, you would just _listen to me_!"

"I _always _listen to you! _I _was the one who wanted to settle down here when you got released, _I_ was the one who wanted to start a family! But no, you said '_escuchame'_ back then, too. 'Kids are too much work; you won't like it; we don't have the money for a family; listen to me,' and I _did_. So why the hell can't you just leave this one thing alone?"

Al doesn't answer right away.

"You still want a family?"

Courtney presses herself a smidge closer to the door.

"Like hell I'm bringing a child into this mess," Heather mutters. "That's in the past. Stop pestering me about cutting my hair."

"_Porque_? Why this aversion, huh?"

"The last time I cut it, I came home and you were being carted off to prison," she says.

Courtney hears a softness in her voice that she's never heard her use before. Al is quiet for a long moment as either Harold or Duncan noisily pulls the car out of the garage.

"You shouldn't be so superstitious, _amor_."

"Says the man who turns his socks inside-out twice before washing them and will only drink his father's favorite brand of whiskey."

"...Heather, I'm not going anywhere."

"And I'm not cutting my hair."

"Heather—"

"I said—"

"_Te amo_."

Heather huffs.

"Yeah," she says. Courtney hears a kiss. "I '_te amo' _too."

Harold comes in the front door and Courtney takes that as her cue.

"Here's the broom!" she calls, handing it to them through the door. "Let's go take some pictures."

The five of them walk outside to the car and pass the camera around. Courtney borrows one of Duncan's nice cigars and jokingly poses with it, a pistol, and the car. Harold and Duncan take pictures with the Ford, outside it and behind the wheel. Al whispers something dirty in Heather's ear and even she can't keep her sour expression for the camera when Courtney insists on a picture of just the two of them.

"Give Al the camera and get over here," Duncan tells her, indicating she come pose with him and the car. Courtney passes over the camera and comes over, squealing when Duncan lifts her up and sits her on the hood of the Ford for a pose.

"Smile like ya mean it," he tells her as he slips an arm around her waist.

Courtney wraps her arm across his shoulder and leans her cheek against the top of his new haircut as Al readies to take the picture.

"I do mean it."


	26. Vacation

"You know, we can use the tub in Heath's room," Duncan comments as Courtney wipes herself down in front of the vanity. She grins and puts the rag down.

"It's a little awkward, isn't it? It's their bathroom."

"So? We're entitled to a bath," he drawls, wrapping his arms around her. "I know yer dyin' to try out that tub."

"Hmm. Give me one minute to put a robe on."

"Don't bother," Duncan bites lightly at her throat. "Al's bathroom is ten feet away and yer robe's ending up on the floor anyway."

Courtney blushes, but takes his hand and lets Duncan sneak them across the house, naked, to the master bathroom.

When the tub is full, Courtney lets Duncan climb in first. He sinks into the water and lets out a groan of delight before beckoning her over. He holds out his hand to help her keep her balance, and Courtney sinks down into the water between his legs, leaning back against his chest. Duncan begins to lather her arms with soap, tracing every dip and contour.

"This is heaven," she moans. "If I never have to bathe in a shallow stream again, it'll be too soon."

"Stream water's good for yer soul, darlin'," he teases.

Courtney lets her head fall back against his shoulder.

"Then I'm going to hell with hot water and a bar of soap."

The water hasn't begun to cool when the door swings open and Heather barges into the bathroom. Courtney and Duncan jump and Courtney quickly covers herself with the bubbles.

"You two look cozy," Heather remarks, going to search through the drawers.

"Jesus fuck, Heath," Duncan snarls, glaring at the raven haired woman. "For cryin' out loud, ain't ya got a sense of privacy?"

"Oh please, don't let me interrupt your foreplay," she says dismissively, never raising her eyes from the drawers. "By all means, carry on. It's only _my _bathroom in _my _apartment," she adds, grunting and reaching further into the drawer. She pauses and pulls out a bottle of cologne, smirking to herself.

"You look like you're going to church," Courtney snips, glancing over Heather's outfit. The woman was always wearing clothes that clung to every bit of her, but here she was, dressed in a flowing blue dress with a sheer scarf covering her head.

"I _am _going to church," Heather says simply, pulling out a drawer and dumping its contents onto the floor. She pulls up the drawer's false bottom and sighs in relief.

Courtney raises a brow. "You'd burst into flames at the door."

"Laugh all you want," Heather says breezily, plucking an official looking document from the drawer. "I'm a preacher's daughter, and Alejandro and I were married at the local parish. We're renewing our marriage license." She crosses in front of them and sinks to the floor, moving aside a loose tile and pulling out a small handful of bills. She raises her eyes and smirks at Courtney, who sinks just deep enough into the water to hide while still glaring.

"Why the hell do ya need to renew yer fucking marriage license right now?" Duncan spits, his muscles tensed against Courtney's back. She strokes his thigh.

Heather straightens up without missing a beat. "If you don't have someone else's business to stick your nose into, Clyde, why don't you stick it between someone's legs and get off my case, huh?"

"Hey!" Courtney snaps.

"Don't ya have yer own husband to make fucking miserable?"

A knock comes from the door, and Alejandro's body comes into view from the partially open door. "You ready, Heather?"

Courtney panics and disappears under the water, holding her breath.

She vaguely hears a muffled voice telling them to ''Have fun", a few laughs, and then the door to the bathroom shuts.

"She's gone," Duncan says, nudging Courtney's shoulder. She shoots upward, gasping for air.

"I'm going to kill her," she says, fixing her hair and readjusting herself against Duncan.

"You and me both, doll."

"No, I mean it," Courtney says as she wipes a few soap bubbles from her face. "I am _actually _going to kill her. Day in and day out, always stuck with her, driving for hours in a cramped car, living in a house with her, having to listen to her treat me like garbage all day long… I'm surprised I haven't killed her _yet_."

"Patience, darlin'," Duncan says, the smirk radiating off of him. "'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil'..."

"Because I'm dating the meanest son of a bitch in the valley," Courtney concludes.

Duncan howls with laughter and his whole body shakes with the motion, water spilling from the tub. Courtney grins and tilts her chin upwards to kiss him. He kisses her back through his chuckling, a hand cupping her breast and stroking it gently. She turns in his arms and slides her hands down his stomach.

The door opens again, revealing their ginger driver.

"Did I leave my shaving cream in—?"

"Harold!"

* * *

><p>A few days later, with summer in Texas finally starting to wind down, they decide to leave the house and try going to Heather and Al's old country club pool.<p>

Duncan raises his sunglasses as he drives past the open gate and down a long road. "Ya know for a fact they ain't gonna barricade us at the front door?"

Heather huffs. "We've been patrons at this club since we bought the apartment. It's highly unlikely."

"What's so special about this ole place?" Harold asks, lighting up a cigarette. "It's only a swimming pool and some overpriced drinks."

"And a buffet, and a diving board, and air conditioning," Courtney says, reading off the brochure. "Where my mother lives, not even all the markets have air conditioning."

"We get the point, Bonnie," Heather sighs, fanning herself with her hand. "You don't have to sell the place anymore, we're practically there."

"A swim'll be nice," Courtney muses. "It's hot as hell in your apartment."

"I'll take your renovation notes and give them to my contractor right away."

"Easy now, _amor_," Al says. "We're practically on vacation. Besides, we all agreed we need this day-trip out of the house."

Heather piles her hair on top of her head with a strong side-eye in her husband's direction.

Duncan pulls into a parking spot and, after checking his surroundings, gives the others an all clear to get out of the car.

"And this is safe? Being in plain sight like this?" Courtney says, stepping out of the Ford and smoothing down her skirt.

"Nothing's totally safe, doll," Duncan says, sliding a hand around Courtney's shoulders. "But what's life without a little risk, huh?"

They reach the fronts step of the club, and as the air conditioning envelops them, Courtney sighs.

"Pool's this way," Alejandro says, leading them with his hands in his pockets. Heather and Harold follow close behind, but Duncan lingers.

"I ain't gonna step back outside," Duncan muses beside Courtney. "This air's downright heavenly."

"But you've already enticed me with a swim." Courtney says, lacing her hand with his. "You're not going to disappoint me, are you?"

"Disappoint you? As if I could," Duncan says, pecking her cheek before following in Al's direction.

Heather is already laying on a reclined pool chair when they get outside, and Al is rubbing oil on her back. Duncan peels the shirt off his sticky back and drapes it over the back of the chair.

"Where's Harold?" Courtney asks.

"Buffet. He said lunch was on him," Alejandro says, never lifting his eyes from Heather's back.

"You packing heat, darlin?" Duncan asks Courtney, eying her frame.

"In my pool bag," Courtney says slowly, apprehensive. She glances around the pool deck for coppers or suspicious characters, but no one stands out.

"Then I'll take this," he says, taking her bag and shouldering it, "and I'll take that," he adds, hoisting Courtney into his arms bridal style.

"Duncan! Don't you dare—!"

With a wicked grin, Duncan tosses her into the pool with a shriek. She emerges to find the pool goers staring at her and Al laughing his head off. Duncan stands where he tossed her, trying to strip down to his swimwear faster than Courtney can swim back across the pool and pull him in.

He makes it down to his swim trunks and the one sock covering his bad foot when Courtney grabs him by the knee and trips him into the pool.

Underwater, he kisses her, then slips his head between her legs and stands, hoisting her up into his shoulders. Courtney playfully styles his wet hair into a Mohawk.

"Al! Get in here!" he calls. "We've got a long overdue feud to settle!"

Al looks over at Heather, on her back and sunning. She lowers her glasses to glare.

"You lay a hand on me and you're going to have one less hand, Alejandro Barrow."

"Well, there's worse things a man could be missing," Al says with a grin, yanking Heather out of her chair and into a hug before falling backwards with her into the pool.

Harold reappears from the buffet, his arms full of food, to watch as Heather unsuccessfully tries to drown Al.


	27. Swan Song

One afternoon eight weeks into their Joplin vacation, while sitting in a kitchen chair and taking pictures of the sunset, Courtney overhears Heather grousing from the parlor.

"Goddamnit," she says. "I'm sober."

Duncan plays an upbeat bar of music on his newly acquired saxophone in response.

"Go fuck yer husband, then," he suggests.

"He's sleeping."

Duncan plays another bar, jazzy. "How's that my problem?"

"You finished off our last bottle of scotch," Heather says. "Go replace it."

Duncan plays two notes, teasing. "Can't."

"And why the hell not?"

With expert precision, Duncan plays an upwards scale, lightning quick, and says, "Courtney's sucking my dick."

"I certainly am not!" she calls, lowering her camera. "I'm not even in the same room as you!"

"I'm trying this new thing called programming," Duncan calls back. "Some loon was talkin' about it on the radio. Y'see, ya picture the thing that ya want to happen, and then it happens. Would ya believe it?"

With an eye roll, Courtney pads into the parlor. Heather, Duncan, and Harold are lounging about in the dwindling afternoon sun.

"Keep programming, asshole. See how far that actually gets you," she says, messing Duncan's hair.

Heather chuckles, stretching cat-like on the chaise. "Good one."

"Whose side are you on?" Duncan demands.

"Never yours, Hotshot. I married the other Barrow for a reason."

"A choice that will live in infamy," Harold jokes, plucking at the strings of Al's guitar as its owner naps in his bedroom.

"C'mere, doll," Duncan says, pulling Courtney down to his lap for a kiss. He puts aside his saxophone, which is somewhat momentous as he's barely let it go since buying it in town last week.

"Hm, you wanna take more pictures?" Courtney suggests, lifting her camera.

Duncan takes it from her and lays it beside his sax. "Hon, I love posin' with my guns and my cars and my dames, but I'm startin' to think ya love that camera more than ya love me."

Courtney takes his face in her hands. "And I haven't been touched as much as that saxophone since Sunday. You and I, mister, are even."

Duncan pouts. "That ain't fair, doll. I ain't laid my hands on a saxophone in two years." He smirks. "I can lay my hands on ya whenever I want."

"True," Courtney says and kisses him again.

Behind them, Heather groans. "Get a different house, you two. It's bad enough I have to wear earplugs, don't make me watch."

"You know, it's your fault we're all bored out of our minds," Courtney says, turning to her with a hand on her hip. "You're the one that wanted to live here. There's nothing going on in this town."

"And we got kicked out of a country club for being rowdy," Harold reminds them.

"We've been staring at each other's faces for so long, our eyes are getting crossed," Courtney says. She glances over at the radio wistfully. "The music channel hasn't even been playing any good dance songs."

With a gleam in his eye, Duncan straightens up. "Yer right."

He gets up with no warning, and Courtney nearly hits the floor.

"Hey!"

"Get dressed, all of ya," he says to the girls and Harold. "Wake up my brother. I've got just the thing to get y'all up and at 'em."

They disperse, including Duncan, who goes to their bathroom to change into his suit. Courtney grabs her camera and returns it to her suitcase, and while shuffling through her limited supply of going-out clothes, she comes across the red beaded dress she bought with Heather.

In ten minutes, she does her makeup and finishes getting dressed, draping her lucky string of pearls down the front of her dress. Then she saunters back into the parlor where Duncan has returned to his saxophone.

"You still haven't told me how long you've been keeping this musical talent hidden from me," she jokes.

"Since I was thirteen," he says without turning around. "The only reason I believe I've got a Pa at all is 'cause of the magical sax that showed up on my doorstep one Christmas." He goes back to whizzing through a saxophone solo.

"Duncan, turn around."

He glances her way and stops playing mid-note. Courtney spins so he can see the dress.

"I like it," he says, tossing the sax on the couch and walking over. "Take it off."

"Uh uh," she says, pushing him away. "This is a going-out dress. I'm not spending another night in this apartment playing drunken cards if you're saying there's something better in town."

"This is what I get for not keeping my mouth shut," he mutters as the others come out of their rooms, dressed for festivities. "Alright, everyone in the car. I'm driving."

* * *

><p>The five drive to a warehouse just on the outside of the city line that looks relatively abandoned other than a beat up truck in the back. Courtney checks, but there's nothing else in sight. She sticks close to Duncan's side.<p>

"What is this place?"

"You'll see, doll," Duncan says, walking up to the sliding front door and knocking.

"But...what happened to laying low?" Harold asks, wringing his hat.

A man slides open the door slightly, takes one look at him, and lets them all pass.

"This is lying low," Duncan answers. "Ya can't get lower than hanging with the lowlifes."

The door opens to reveal that the bare warehouse has been made up into a makeshift speakeasy. A stage is set up at the far corner, lit by strings of bulbs, while a band plays. Collapsible tables line the outer rim of a plywood dancefloor where couples dance to ragtime. A short wall of crates and an irritable looking man indicates a bar.

The small crowd tenses and subtly glances their way, before relaxing. They're more than likely all criminals. In fact, two of them spot Duncan and walk over to start up a conversation. Courtney goes to the bar.

"A dry martini, please."

"Whaddya think this is, the goddamned Ritz?" the man says. "Ya get beer, or a scotch. Take yer pick, doll."

Courtney grits her teeth but orders a beer. As she takes a swig, she scans the crowd. Duncan's still talking to the criminals, and Al and Heather mill through the crowd separately. Harold is trying to talk to a burly looking man who doesn't seem to understand Harold's obvious excitement.

The band starts playing something Courtney's never heard before. Her foot taps along to the beat, and she quickly chugs the rest of her beer before joining Duncan and his company.

"So I says to him, 'Ya think this is bad? Wait till ya see him when he's sober!'"

The men laugh at Duncan's story as Courtney sidles up beside him, bumping his hip.

"Boys, let me introduce ya to the lovely Bonnie Jones," he says, wrapping his arm around her waist. "She's been running with me these last few months."

"A pleasure, muffin," one of the men says, taking her hand for a kiss. "I read about ya in Arkansas and Tulsa. I was wondering with my buddy Methvin here when I'd get the chance to see yer face. The poor laws don't have the luxury of your mugshot."

Courtney giggles. Duncan pulls Courtney's hand out of his grip. "Ay, now watch yerself, Fults. She's spoken for."

"Don't be rude, Duncan," Courtney admonishes. To Fults, she says, "Which papers? I'll have to cut out the clippings for my collection."

"Nothing fancy, just the locals. Still, ya make a hell of an impression."

"My gal's something of an artist," Duncan says, kissing the crown of her head. "Poet and collector and photographer."

"And dancer," Courtney adds. "Scuse me, fellas. But I'm gonna have to steal Mister Clyde for a dance."

The other man, Methvin, laughs in her face. "Clyde's a cement mixer. He don't dance, doll."

"You willing to wager he'll dance with me?" she offers coyly, pulling a five from inside her dress. The men glance at each other, at Duncan, and laugh again.

"Sure thing," Fults says, and both men match her money.

Duncan plucks the bills out of their hands. "I should warn you fellas, I'm mighty rusty on the dancefloor. But I'll give it a go for Miss Bonnie here." He tips his hat in their stunned faces and leads Courtney out on the dancefloor.

"Easiest fifteen dollars I ever made," she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You really don't dance?"

"Nah, I dance a mean swing," he admits with a wink, moving his hands from her hips to her ass. "I just like hustling Fultz and Methvin."

"Your secret's safe with me," she says, holding onto his hand and twirling.

He cracks a grin as she spins back into him. "Let's show these cats how its done, yeah?"

Duncan, despite not having much coordination, gets creative. He dips her when she's not expecting it, and spins her when she is. They end up out of breath and nearly tripping over each other. He gives her a break and pulls her to his chest, swaying them back and forth in a simple rhythm.

"This is much more fun than that boring apartment," Courtney says.

"Yeah, well that boring apartment is keeping the bullets from your head," he says, his expression sobering. "After what ya pulled in Tulsa, sending Harold back to the bank, we're all lucky we ain't dead yet."

"Quit whining, it isn't attractive," Courtney brushes off with a shrug, spinning out and then back inside his arms again.

Duncan holds her tightly in place. "Yer getting better, darlin," he whispers in her ear, "but don't mistake being better at something with being the best."

"I shouldn't have to run everything I want to do by you first," she insists.

"Except in this job, ya have to," he says, "unless ya want to get us all killed. Ya think Heather does a thing without running it by me or Al first?"

Courtney glances out at the floor for Heather. She spots Al in the corner talking to a burly looking associate with an anchor tattoo. It takes her a second longer to spot Heather at the bar sidling up to another man.

"She doesn't seem to be running anything by Al right now," Courtney mutters.

Duncan turns them around so Courtney can see better. "Look again."

The man slides Heather a drink and takes her hand for a kiss, slipping money into her palm.

"We make our life's work off the fact that appearances are deceiving," he says. "Keep that in mind. It's dangerous times out here for all of us."

Courtney's mouth tenses in a hard line but she nods. The music no longer sounds as appealing. "Can we take a break?"

Duncan leads her out towards a couple of bar stools. "D'ya want a drink?"

Courtney shakes her head no, her stomach unsettled. Duncan gets himself a scotch, and she stares around the speakeasy once more. Out of the corner of her eye, Courtney spots Heather walking over to interrupt her husband's chat with the burly looking goon, whispering something in his ear.

When Harold walks over, he finds Courtney frowning.

"Can you believe the people in this place?" Harold exclaims. "So many famous gangsters!"

Courtney looks the crowd over. "I don't recognize anyone."

Harold chuckles. "You only followed Clyde in the papers, but trust me when I tell you we're surrounded by criminal royalty. Don't want to mess with any of these guys. Or their molls."

"So I take it you haven't had a dance yet," Courtney guesses.

"On the contrary," Harold says happily. "Miss Leshawna has promised me a dance once her set is done."

Harold waves at the large woman on stage, singing with the band and she smiles at him, winking.

"Don't hold yer breath on that dance," Duncan says, returning with his scotch. "Heard from some jobbies at the bar that they'll be clearing this place out in about an hour. We should be gone by then."

Harold looks crestfallen.

"Why?" Courtney asks. "I was having a good time."

"The coppers might want to join us for a swan song," Duncan quips, gesturing Heather and Al over.

"You said yourself that they won't be here for another hour. Let's stay a little longer, please?" Courtney asks. "It really isn't fair to Harold to keep him from his dance with.. Leshonda, was it?"

"Leshawna!" Harold rasps.

"Let's stay another twenty minutes," she pleads. "That way we have plenty of time to leave before the cops come around. We can even ask the band leader if he'll let you play sax with them."

Duncan ponders for a moment. "Twenty minutes on the dot."

Al and Heather come over, arm in arm.

"Problem, Clyde? Heather was just starting to play nice." Heather elbows him in the ribs.

"Nothing. No problem, we're leaving in twenty minutes."

Leshawna finishes her song and takes a small bow before gesturing to Harold. His face lights up before he dashes over with hardly a goodbye. A different, faster tune starts up.

"They're playing my song," Heather says, swaying her hips. "Shall we?" she asks Alejandro, holding out her hand.

"We could outdance ya any day," Duncan challenges.

"I'll wager that, hermano."

Fifteen minutes, four songs, and two more rounds of liquor later, a small spindly man comes rushing in the front door, panting and out of breath.

"We got coppers! Five miles out!"

Every man in the vicinity springs into motion like a well-oiled clock. They begin grabbing bottles and tables, lighting and chairs. Al grabs a milk crate and starts loading it up with full bottles of liquor, a stack of cards, and poker chips.

"That's my cue, babydoll," Lashawna says to Harold, pecking him on the cheek. "Be good to yourself."

"But they said an hour!" Courtney insists as Duncan pulls her out the door and to the car.

"Don't worry, doll," Duncan kisses Courtney roughly, pushing her up against the outside of the car as the others run out. "Our party is just beginning."

* * *

><p>AN: Next chapter: shit, meet fan.


	28. Firefight

Courtney gasps as Duncan presses his mouth between her legs, her vision spinning. She reaches for something to grab and knocks a pair of perfume bottles to the carpeted floor. Courtney leans her head back, her spine cool against the glass of the mirror and tries to steady her gulps of air by gripping the edges of the vanity.

"If I didn't know any better," Duncan whispers, on his knees, "I'd say ya liked that."

"Shut up," Courtney pleads. She pulls his hair ever so slightly. "Shut up and just...shut up…"

He sucks hard, and Courtney looks straight up at the linoleum ceiling. Her eyes flutter as she struggles to keep quiet; they drift close as Duncan pushes the fabric of her nightgown further up her stomach. When she re-opens her eyes, her gaze settles on the door of the bedroom. It's open a crack, even though she'd locked it when they'd started.

Al is on the other side, watching her.

She freezes.

"You alright, baby?" Duncan murmurs without looking up.

Courtney stares at Al. He holds a finger to his lips, smiling, and shakes his head slightly. Instinctively, Courtney brings a hand up to cover her breasts, even though they're already under the fabric of her nightgown. In the dim light, she sees Al roll his eyes before walking off.

Duncan stands, looking at her worriedly. When Courtney doesn't react, he follows her eyes to the empty doorway behind them.

"It's an old apartment," he says, pecking her on the lips. "Lock must've jumbled open with all the movement we had going on in here. Don't ya worry. No one's up this time of night."

"Someone…" Courtney breathes, swallows. "Someone…"

"No one's up. Promise. Heath was beat, Al drank way more than he should've, and Leshawna probably danced Harold to an early grave. I'll shut the door if… Courtney? Yer shaking."

She opens her arms and Duncan embraces her. Over his shoulder, she watches the door.

"You're right. You're right," she whispers.

"Of course I'm right," he snarks. Courtney doesn't laugh.

"It was probably all the movement. The apartment is old," she repeats.

"That's my girl. Now," he says, pecking her on the lips once more. "Back to business."

"Actually, I think I'm done for the night," Courtney says, getting off the vanity.

"What'd I do?"

"Nothing. You didn't do anything," she insists, going to close and lock the door. "I'm tired. I just… Let's get some rest. We'll finish up tomorrow morning, okay?"

Duncan doesn't look happy. She kisses him; he tastes like her. "Promise."

He hesitates before kissing her back.

"Tease," he mutters, and it's not entirely playful.

* * *

><p>Courtney stays awake, staring at the freshly locked door until Duncan falls asleep. She pulls her way out of his arms and, still in nothing more than her nightgown, goes out to the parlor, intent on marching straight to Al and Heather's room.<p>

She doesn't get that far. Al is sitting on the couch, silently cleaning his rifle. A bottle of scotch from the bar sits open and half empty beside him. Courtney walks around the couch to his line of vision.

"Didn't know you were so kinky, Mrs. Jones," he says without looking up. "Full of surprises, you are."

Before she can react, before she considers, Courtney slaps him.

Al holds his face, heaving once. The apartment creaks around them. Then he chuckles.

"Never woulda guessed the sweet little secretary from Texas was so bold."

"You son of a bitch," she snarls. "You have a wife."

"And you have a husband," he retorts. "It hardly stops you."

Courtney holds the hand with her wedding band behind her back. "That's not… I left—"

"I have to say," he interrupts, "I can see why we had to go all the way back to Dallas to get you. Seems I'm not the only man in this family with a woman who can deliver."

"I'm not _his _woman," she says. "And I'm not _your _woman either."

Al waves her off, setting down the gun and taking a long swig of scotch. "Titles and such, _chica_. You are important to him no matter what you call yourself."

Courtney grips her hand harder to keep it from shaking. "I'll tell him," she threatens. "I'll tell him you were there."

"You had your chance, and you didn't. You know why?" Al stands up and shoots back what's left of the scotch bottle without flinching. "I think you're like me. You like an audience."

She takes a step back from him. "I'm nothing like you."

"No? You mean to tell me you didn't enjoy our little show in Shreveport? When Heather and I came back from testing Harold and you were 'sleeping' on the couch?"

Courtney gapes as he continues, "I was just returning the favor tonight." He takes another step towards her. "I can keep returning the favor if you want."

Courtney cases the room for something to grab. "You're drunk," she says. "You're drunk, and you don't know what you're doing."

"You know, he owes me," Al says, his voice clear. He picks up the automatic rifle from the table, admiring it. "Those long nights on the road, in the middle of the nowhere, no other woman around but Heather, and me being a _good_ big brother…"

"Alejandro..._Buck_," she says. Maybe the nickname will snap him out of it. Courtney backs up into the wall. "Listen, please, I'm not…" she eyes the rifle in his grip, "I'm not..._mad_...I'm...you're drunk…"

He follows her gaze to the gun. Shaking his head, he rolls his eyes and places the rifle back on the table behind him. "You think I want to hurt you? Really?"

"I'll scream."

For a long moment, Al is quiet, looking her over. Courtney counts the steps between where she is and Duncan's bedroom. Al reaches forward and brushes the back of his hand against her cheek, his knuckles rough.

"_Pobrecita_. Poor little country girl. You don't even realize what he's doing to you."

Courtney jerks her knee to his groin, her hands forcing his shoulders down. Al grunts and collapses. Jumping out of his reach, she picks up his discarded BAR and points the gun between his legs.

"You ever come near me again," she warns, "and Heather's gonna have to find another man to sleep with because you'll be _useless_ to her."

Al straightens up. He doesn't look amused anymore. "Put down the gun, Bonnie."

She pulls back the release, like she's seen him do dozens of times. "You stay the hell away from me, and I will."

There comes a knock on the door.

Al and Courtney stop cold and turn to the sound. Al puts a finger to his lips and waits. Courtney holds her breath, watching as a faint light starts to glow from behind the pulled blinds.

The knock comes again, harder.

"Police!" a man's voice calls in a New York accent. "Open up!"

Courtney looks at the door, at the gun in her hands, at herself in her nightgown. "I, uh, just a minute," she stammers. "I'm not dressed, give me a second to—"

Al yanks the rifle out of her hands, pulls the release back, and opens fire on the door.

Courtney has enough time to clamp her hands over her ears and shout, "What are you doing?!" before the sound triples, quadruples, and the glass windows at the front of the house explode in showers of glass, shredding through the curtains.

Pain rips through her left side. Courtney screams and stumbles back, tripping over the coffee table behind her and landing on her shoulder. She can't make out the RATATAT of the individual BARs. It's all she can manage to start crawling away from the noise and think, _I've been shot. I've been shot._

Courtney crawls, staying close to the ground as shards of glass from the window stab at her stomach. The noise is so loud it hurts_. _Her side hurts too, sharp and warm. But instincts that she didn't know she had tell her she can't spare her hands to stem the blood, that she needs to crawl, to get away from the sound.

"Get up! Courtney, _get up!_"

Courtney looks up. Duncan is kneeling over her, wearing only his briefs, another automatic rifle in hand. He's shouting over the gunfire, "_I've got ya covered! _Get to the car!"

She scrambles to her feet. Her side spasms, and the pain nearly blinds her. Duncan grabs her arm. He pulls her up, puts a pistol in her hand, and shouts, "_Go! GO!"_

With a hand to her side, sticky with blood, Courtney rushes for the door. She looks back once, in time to see Al toss away his empty automatic and pull two pistols from his waist. Each brother has a window and is firing out into the night. Duncan's eyes cut to her briefly, and Courtney doesn't need to be told twice. She scrambles past the kitchen, where plates in the drying rack are shattering with bullets, and out to the Ford in the garage. Harold is already inside the car, curled up in the backseat.

"Oh god make it stop make it stop make it stop," he whimpers.

Seeing Harold like that shocks some sense into her. "Harold! Where are the keys?"

The wooden door of the garage is splintering with gunfire. A bullet goes through the windshield, cracking the glass as Courtney dives into the front seat. The keys are in the ignition and Courtney brings the Ford to life as Duncan and Al run through the door. Al jumps in the backseat with Harold, and Duncan pushes her over to the passenger side, putting the car in drive and flooring it.

The car tears through the garage door. On the other side, Courtney glimpses at least three sets of copper headlights before their Ford rams into the police car blocking the driveway. The passenger side window shatters, and Courtney takes it as a cue to start firing wildly into the dark. Duncan forces the car out of the way, driving with one hand and shooting with the other as Al reloads his BAR and shouts at Harold to fire _something_.

The headlights catch a police officer in their way, gun aimed at the windshield. Courtney turns towards him, but Duncan is faster. He points his pistol straight at the man's head and fires one shot. The cloud of red blood catches in the headlights for a split second, like a pink fog, before the man goes down and the car jostles over his body.

"On your left!" Al shouts, knocking out his window with the butt of his gun and opening fire.

The RATATAT is deafening from inside the car, and Harold clamps his hands over his ears, screaming, "Make it stop! _Make it stop!_"

"_Shut up!_" Duncan bellows. "Shoot! _Shoot them!_"

Courtney finds her aim between the pain and the adrenaline and starts shooting at glimmers of light. Bottles on a fencepost. Everything is just a bottle on a fencepost.

Before she can reload, they're clear, and the deafening sound of the automatic rifle stops.

"Where's Heather?" Al says, looking around the car. His voice sounds muffled to Courtney's ears. "Clyde, _where's Heather?!"_

Courtney lowers the pistol, and looks down at herself. Her nightgown is drenched in sweat and blood, the front tattered from the glass.

"I'm bleeding," she says. "Duncan, I'm bleeding."

Duncan takes one look at her, yanks up the side of her nightgown to see the wound and lowers it just as quick. "You'll live."

"Oh god, oh god oh god," Harold is whimpering from the floor of the backseat.

"Turn around!" Al shouts, grabbing Duncan's shoulder. "Clyde, turn around! We need to go back for Heather!"

Courtney lifts up the dress to look at the skin. There's a gash, like from a knife, running about six inches across her side, bleeding freely. "I think I've been shot," she says.

"_Clyde_! We're not leaving—!"

"_SHUT UP!" _Duncan roars. "SHUT UP! EVERYONE SHUT UP! I'm trying to think!"

Courtney looks up from her side to see the Ford's headlights catch the outline of a woman, running. "There!" she calls, pointing.

The boys turn to look. Duncan swerves the car onto the sidewalk and slows only just enough for Al to kick the door open and pull Heather into the car. She's in her nightclothes too, under a thick jacket. Shehe heaves, gasping from running as Al looks her over, babbling frantically in Spanish.

"Heath?" Duncan asks once.

Heather gags, then she vomits.

"Take one cigarette break," she says weakly, "and everything goes to fucking hell."

"Oh my god, oh my god oh god, how are we alive?" Harold says.

"No thanks to you," Courtney snaps. "Why didn't you start the car?"

Harold sits up from the floor, his pants covered in Heather's sick, his eyes bloodshot. "There were coppers everywhere. I didn't...I didn't think…"

"No, you _didn't _think!" Courtney shouts. "You're our driver! No matter what, you _drive_!"

Harold blinks at her a few times, then looks at the others in the car. Duncan doesn't look away from the dark road ahead of them. Al has an unusually quiet Heather wrapped in his arms and is whispering assurances.

"I...I didn't want to sit up and get shot," he mutters.

"Well neither did I! But I still did my goddamn job, Harold!"

"Bonnie," Al says, looking at her appealingly over Heather's shoulder.

"NO!" she screams. "No, don't you fucking start! Don't you of all fucking people fucking start with me right now! He should have been in the fucking car!"

"And you should have grabbed a weapon the second you heard that copper," Al shouts back, "instead of playing goddamn coy and getting yourself shot up!"

Courtney turns to Duncan. "Stop the car."

Duncan doesn't take his eyes off the road. "No way in hell."

"_I said stop the fucking car!"_

Duncan throws her a glare, and he yanks the steering wheel abruptly, pulling them off the road and into an open field.

Courtney stumbles out of the car and walks a few feet away from it. Duncan steps out and follows her, leaving it running.

When they're far enough away, Courtney whirls on him. "Are you going to let him talk to me like that? Huh? Your own brother?"

"He's right," he says, icily calm. "Ya should've gone for a gun."

"Was I supposed to pull one out of my ass?" she shouts. "I had three seconds to make a call, and I figured stalling would—"

"Would _what_? Delay the opening fire? Give us an edge?"

Courtney starts pacing. "We have to get rid of Harold."

"It's his first firefight, ya both made mistakes—"

"No, no! I did my job!" she jabs a finger at herself. "I was pissing myself, but I did it! He was dead weight! He could have gotten us killed!"

"Oh, goodie," Duncan snaps. "Now ya know how I feel about ya on every fucking job."

Courtney whirls on him, holding a hand to her splintering side, cold and angry and shaking so hard her muscles hurt. "You—_asshole._ You think you're so much better than me? Huh? You're nothing special! You're lousy! Just like your goddamn brother! You're only a crook because you can't do anything else goddamn right, and you can't even do _that _goddamn right! You're a scoundrel, and you're worthless without me!"

"Yeah?"

"A worthless little boy who wants all the things he can't have and who gets mad when he's called on his bullshit! Well, you know what?!"

"_Yeah?!"_

"_No_ good, _backwater_, human _garbage_!" she screams. "That's what you are, Duncan Clyde!"

"Well, how about _you_?! _Mrs._ Jones?" he answers, his calm demeanor fracturing. "Ya think _I'm_ worthless without _you_? You were nothing when I found ya. Nothing! A dime a dozen bitch who couldn't even get off with her own two hands! You wanna talk about _special_?! The only thing special about _you _is the goddamn speed you'll spread yer legs for the first jobbie who says ya ain't dumb as bricks!"

Courtney's ears ring. Part hearing damage, part shame, and part shock. She opens her mouth, but the words are lodged. Her jaw quivers, so she shuts it.

Abruptly she turns and limps away from him, out to the field. Duncan doesn't follow her.

The world is a blur of shapes and shadows as she walks, with no direction, away from Duncan. Away from the car and the blood and the lies he promised her. Courtney walks away and doesn't look back.

"Courtney..."

She doesn't turn at his voice. Doesn't even so much as twitch, even as she feels him coming up behind her.

"Courtney... Dollface…" He reaches out to hold her. She wards him off and keeps walking. "I didn't mean that. I...I didn't mean none of that, baby. I'm so sorry, I didn't…"

"Yes, you did," she says and picks up the pace.

Duncan blocks her way, holding her at arm's length, desperate, as she tries to get around him. "No... No, Courtney, I didn't mean that. I just… I... I lost my temper, losing the coppers. And you getting shot and Harold in shock and, and, and Al shouting, and Heath missing…"

He throws himself to his knees before her and hugs her, pressing his face into her chest. He's careful not to squeeze her wound.

"I am so, _so _sorry," he says, voice breaking. "I didn't mean none of that. I didn't mean none of it. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, baby, forgive me, I'm so sorry..."

Courtney bites down on her lip, hard enough to break skin. Either the shock or the blood loss keeps a solid stopper on her tears. She lets him grovel. She lets him feel dirty and stupid too, and it's petty revenge but it's enough.

"I know," she says back at last. "I know. I'm sorry too. I heard the man at the door, and I got so _scared_..."

"We gonna be alright, ain't we?" he asks as she puts her arms around him. "Me and you, we gonna be alright?"

"Yeah," she murmurs, resting her palms against the top of his head and looking at the headlights and the moon, the only two sources of light for miles. "Yeah."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Gangsters and Gun Molls, it is our pleasure to say that deviantartist and coolest of cats _Cid-Vicious_ will be doing illustrations for Machine Gun Blues! He also did the image we're now using as our story pic. We'll be doing our best to coordinate chapter and picture posts from this point on, but please be patient with our updates in the coming months. With the way fate has turned on the Barrow Gang, there's no rest for the wicked in sight.


	29. Mother

They left everything in Joplin. Every suitcase, every dollar bill, every gun they were carrying and all of their ammunition. Al's guitar and Duncan's saxophone too. Courtney has only her wedding ring and her nightgown to her name, not even underwear. She left her folder of Duncan Clyde clippings and her book of poetry, her lucky string of pearls and her camera full of all their silly pictures. Harold left his collection of clippings too.

Al doesn't talk about anything he misses, but Heather mentions that she hates herself for having gone out to smoke in her cheapest coat, and a cloud passes over her eyes anytime someone mentions the apartment itself.

They abandon the shot-up Ford convertible on the side of the road, and Duncan looks at it just a second too long as they drive off in their new car.

On the second night after the shooting, the gang knocks over a general store so they can stop driving around in their nightwear. As her crew ransacks the place, Courtney stands guard outside, waiting her turn, turning her wedding ring anxiously and shivering in the fall air.

She hadn't eaten since the afternoon before the speakeasy. When she tried, she couldn't hold anything down. The bullet graze in her side had taken hours to stop bleeding, and the dried blood still pulls at her skin a little every time she moves. Trying to sleep had been hell when even the slightest noises sounded like gunfire.

Duncan comes out from the general store, still in his briefs, a bedsheet draped over his shoulder and hydrogen peroxide in one hand. Getting on one knee, he pushes up the tattered, bloodied fabric of her nightdress.

"You killed that officer," Courtney says. "In front of the car."

Duncan rips a strip of linen between his teeth. "Yeah."

She holds up her nightdress so Duncan can work. "He was gonna kill us," she says without inflection.

Duncan feels around her midsection. They'd spent the day picking shards of glass out of her stomach. He pours the peroxide on a bundled strip of linen and starts dabbing at her wounds.

"Yeah."

Duncan covers her front and side in the rust brown liquid. Then he rips several long strips from the bedsheets for bandages.

"That makes seven," he says.

Courtney looks down at the hard line of his mouth, the linen in his hands and only three strips over his shoulder. She shuts her mouth and waits for the others to come out so she can get out of her bloodied clothes.

Something is knocked over inside followed by a harsh "_Shhh!_" from Al.

"Yer clean, love," Duncan says, wiping at the dried trails of blood down her leg. "Ya didn't kill any of those officers."

"I shot at them," she says. "You don't know."

He starts to wrap her midsection, slowly passing the fabric around her waist. "You did what ya had to, to help save our asses. There ain't no regret in that."

"Do you regret it?" she asks. "Killing people?"

"Sometimes."

"When?"

Duncan tucks the end of a strip into the beginning of another, careful not to press. "When people don't deserve it. When they try to take back things that ain't worth dying for." He rips another strip between his teeth. "Most of the time, they _do_ deserve it, like when they try to put me back in prison. When they think I'm just a kid they can have their way with 'cause I'm _spry _and _pretty _and don't know how to—"

He stops short, nostrils flaring as he grips a wad of linen in red hands. For a moment, he only gulps down air. Then he keeps wrapping Courtney up in silence.

She stays quiet as he works. There are no more clatters from inside, just light shuffling.

"The world just got a whole lot meaner for us, baby," he says. "We've gotta get a whole lot meaner too."

Duncan pulls her gown back down just as Heather and Al emerge. Heather wears a plaid dress she normally wouldn't be caught dead in and Al lumbers out wearing a shirt and slacks one size too big. He carries a collapsible tent under one arm and a bag of soup cans. Duncan leads Courtney by the hand inside to scavenge.

* * *

><p>They rob a Kansas armory in the middle of the fifth night to restock on weapons and ammunition. The boys pick up cartridges for their Brownings and their Colts, as well as some old school Winchester repeating rifles. Heather replaces her Colt .38s, and Duncan gets Courtney a top-break pocket pistol, smaller than the one she'd had before. It packs a hell of a punch, and Duncan engraves it for her with a switchblade.<p>

"To Bonnie," it says, "I owe you one."

On day eight, when they've been driving through Oklahoma for hours without a destination, and the long ride, normally a cesspool of frustration and indignancy by this point, is unbearably quiet, Duncan has Harold make a sudden turn at the interstate.

"That's it," Duncan says. "Fuck it. We're going back to Texas."

They'd been sleeping in the car, but at the news, everyone is alert, including Courtney. "What?"

"We ain't hardly stopped since Joplin. I'm fucking homesick. I know I can't be the only one. Turn here."

"But the coppers," Harold begins to say.

"Fuck the coppers. I miss Texas. I'm going home."

Courtney raises a brow. When Duncan doesn't say anything else, she leans her head back against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

When she wakes up from an uneasy sleep filled with gunfire and moonlight, Harold is complaining of a need to pee, and after some arguing with Duncan, the former pulls into a convenience store.

"Mandatory pit-stop, everybody out," Duncan declares, getting out and opening Courtney's door. "Even you."

He holds his hand out to help her, but she ignores it and limps out by herself.

Al groans, tipping his fedora back over his eyes. Duncan shakes him, disturbing Heather napping on his lap.

"Oy! I ain't stopping us again 'til we reach Dallas, so if you can hold yer piss that long, be my guest."

Al swears at his brother in Spanish and, grumbling, gets Heather out of the car. Courtney passes by them and into the store. She walks straight to the soda machine at the back to buy a Coke with the nickel she'd found in their stolen car.

Duncan grabs her hand just as she's about to put her coin in the machine.

"It's on me," he says, pulling out his own nickel. He grabs the bottle for her, pops the lid on the handle, and hands it to her. "You haven't said more than five words to anyone in as many days, doll. I'm starting to worry."

"I know," Courtney says. She winces. "Sorry. Two words."

He brushes some hair out of her face. "Dallas will cheer you up. You'll see. You won't even remember what happened."

Al walks in at that moment, Heather on his arm, and Courtney can't suppress the twist in her stomach at the sight of him.

"Can we visit my mother?" she asks, staring into her coke bottle.

Duncan kisses her forehead. "Of course. We'll meet up with my Ma too. I'll introduce you to her, how about that?"

Courtney takes a sip of her Coke, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of the brown blouse she'd acquired.

"I can't even wrap my head around the fact that you're from Dallas too, let alone that you have a mother. It's entirely possible that you were raised by a pack of gun-wielding coyotes."

Behind her, Heather snorts.

"Nah, I love my Ma," Duncan says without a hint of bashfulness. "She raised us right. Ain't her fault the career Al and I ended up in."

"I'll ring her up," Al offers, walking to the back of the store where a rotary phone sits.

"Is it safe? Visiting our families?" Courtney asks.

Duncan and Heather exchange a look.

"Ma's used to it already," he says.

"We don't meet in town," Heather explains. "We set something up on the outskirts so none of our fire comes down on her."

"Then how am I supposed to see my mother?" Courtney asks, panic slithering into her veins. "How am I supposed to visit anyone ever again?"

"Easy now. We'll give her a call too," Duncan assures her. "We'll have yer ma meet us outside of town, at our usual spot. How's that?"

Rubbing her forehead, Courtney shuffles away from them, debating. She glances at the papers on the newsstand and stops cold.

"Your mother _does _know you're running with criminals, doesn't she?" Heather hedges.

"...if she didn't before, she does now," Courtney says, picking up the newspaper on the top of the pile. It's one of the national papers, the ones they put out from New York to Los Angeles. And on the front page…

She turns so Duncan and Heather can see it. The headline reads, "_Barrow Gang Treasure Trove Discovered in Joplin_." On the cover is a large picture of Duncan holding up Courtney in front of the Ford V8, one of the many pictures taken on Courtney's camera.

"Al better hurry up with that phone call," Duncan mutters, eyeing the man behind the counter, far more menacing-looking than Owen had been.

"I'll be in the car," Heather says and slips out.

Courtney glances over the article. In addition to the picture, the newspaper had published one of the poems from her notebook, the one she started writing with Duncan in Tulsa. She puts the paper back on the rack. It rustles with the tremor in her hands.

Al returns, ready to say something, but Duncan juts his head in the direction of the newsstand. His brother notices the picture right away and sees the man behind the counter staring at him intently, over the brim of glasses too small for his face. Al leaves without a word.

"Call your ma quickly," Duncan advises. "Tell her to meet us at the Devil's Back Porch at noon tomorrow."

Courtney turns the numbers on the rotary phone too quickly for it to register. She turns the numbers again, slower. She asks the Operator to connect her to her mother's house, then waits, stomach clenching and unclenching.

The line rings twice. Three times.

"_Hello? Mrs. Bons speaking."_

"...Mama?" Courtney whispers. "Mama, it's...it's Bonnie. How are you?"

There's silence on the other end of the line. "Mama?"

"_Bonnie… Oh, my dear girl," _her mother says breathlessly. "_I'm so relieved to hear from you! Where are you?"_

"I'm at a gas station in Oklahoma. I'm on my way towards Dallas."

"_Praise the Lord!" _her mother cries, sounding like she's close to tears. "_How ever did you get away?"_

Courtney's brow furrows. "Get away?"

"_From your kidnappers! That dreadful Duncan Clyde and the Barrows!"_

Courtney feels her stomach go hollow, her fingers swelling. "Mama…"

"_No, no, you don't have to explain a thing! You've been through a terrible ordeal. I'll call Justin to lend me the car, and we'll come pick you up. Where are you?"_

Her hands gripping the phone, Courtney finds her voice with her anger.

"Mama, listen to me very carefully. I wasn't kidnapped, and I didn't escape. I'm still with Duncan and his family. We're passing through Dallas to see his relatives, and I wanted to see you too."

Now it's her mother's voice that sounds hollow. "_What?"_

"I want to see you, Mama. I do. I miss you," she says. "If you want to meet me, go to the Devil's Back Porch by the Trinity River outside of Dallas tomorrow at noon. By yourself. No coppers and absolutely no Justin. If these people think we're being double-crossed or ratted out…"

Courtney glances at Duncan over her shoulder. He's examining a lighter from the counter, watching the teller out of the corner of his eye. He's got one hand on the gun at his waist where the man can't see him.

"_Bonnie,_" her mother says brokenly, "_dear, I don't understand_—_"_

"I'll see you tomorrow. _Only_ you, Mama." Courtney takes a deep breath. "I'll explain everything to you then."

Before her mother has a chance to answer, Courtney slams the receiver down.


	30. Sister

The Devil's Back Porch is a slang term for the shithole that is West Dallas. But more specifically, it's a stretch of dirt road that runs alongside the dilapidated parts of the Trinity Bridge. Parts of it have been washed away by the river floods, destroying its usefulness as a road. It's so tangled with such a mess of trees and shrubs that it's hardly recognizable as a road at all. Which, Courtney guesses, is the whole point of meeting there.

The Barrow gang wait in their newly stolen Ford as the minutes tick to noon. Harold takes apart a toolbox he stole from the general store and categorizes which pieces are missing.

"I left my other toolkit in Joplin," he murmurs when Courtney inquires. "It was my grandpappy's."

Courtney picks apart one of the handful of flowers she picked off the side of the road to bring to her mother. Duncan puts a hand over hers to still her fidgeting as Heather opens a bottle of whiskey in the backseat and passes it to Al.

At five past noon, there comes a knock on the back window of the car. Courtney turns to the sound and has her gun out in seconds, but there's no one there. There's another more playful tap, on Duncan's window, and Courtney whirls around to find a pretty young woman with a black-haired bob, around Courtney's age, pointing her fingers at Duncan in the shape of a gun.

"Bang bang," she smirks. "You're dead."

Courtney stares; Duncan grins. He jumps out of the car and envelops the woman in a fierce hug, then spins her around as she laughs.

Jealousy spikes between Courtney's lungs like glass.

"Didja miss me?" the woman asks when Duncan puts her down.

"Sure I missed ya. Like I miss a toothache," he jokes, messing up her perfectly arranged bob. "When didja cut this?"

She shoves him. "When I moved ta the 20th century, Duncan."

Courtney stiffly exits the car and walks over, her eyes sparking at the use of Duncan's given name. She puts her hand in his, eying the dark-haired woman with a challenge. The woman looks amused, and something in her expression is vaguely familiar.

"This her?" the woman asks.

"That's her," Duncan says, pride buried in his voice. "May I introduce Missus Courtney Bonnie Jones. Courtney, my sister Gwen."

Gwen, wearing a blouse and riding breeches, fake curtsies with an invisible dress. "At long last, the gal who's whipping my big brother inta shape."

"Well, someone's whipping someone," Duncan jokes.

"Kinky," Gwen says.

Al and Heather exit from the backseat of the car to greet the figure who tapped on the back window, an older blonde woman with Duncan's blue eyes, starting to crinkle around the edges.

"I'm sorry," Courtney says tersely, "Duncan never mentioned having a sister." She looks Gwen over, trying to find Duncan in her features. They have the same shade of black hair and share something in the way they smile, like they own the world and no one can take it from them.

Gwen elbows Duncan hard in the ribs. "See that? See what happens when you don't boast about me ta all your pals?"

"The end times are upon us," he says. "Go say hi to yer other brother before he changes his mind about who his favorite sister is."

With a chuckle, Gwen bounds over to her mother, Al, and Heather.

Courtney looks at Duncan, eyes narrowed.

"You never mentioned a sister."

"Half-sister," he corrects. "And it never came up, doll. Don't get upset."

She and Duncan walk over to the group as Gwen launches herself onto Al's back with a cry of, "Think fast, Bucky!"

Al grabs her by the arms and spins her around. Duncan and Al's mother, looking sprightly for her weathered hands and wrinkles, straightens out Heather's plaid dress affectionately and asks her about her family in California.

Duncan politely interrupts, and his mother turns to hug him, despite the fact that her son is a foot taller than she is.

"Ma, there's someone I want ya to meet," he says, nudging Courtney forward. Courtney extends a hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs…um..."

Courtney falters. Was she Mrs. Barrow? Mrs. Clyde? Did Gwen even have the same last name as either of her brothers?

Duncan's mother brushes away the question with a easy swipe of her hand.

"Darling, we're all family here. Ma will do me just as good as anything," she says, and pulls Courtney into an unexpected hug.

Courtney fumbles on the proper way to embrace the older woman. But when she pulls back, Ma is smiling at her like she hung the moon. Courtney smiles back for the first time in days.

"Duncan!" Gwen calls from up on Al's piggyback. "Look who else came out ta see you!"

She releases a hand from around Al's neck and whistles. A dog barks from somewhere in the trees, and a large black rottweiler comes barrelling through the underbrush.

"Scruffy!" Duncan drops to his knees and doesn't care in the slightest when the dog bowls him over in his excitement.

As Al and Gwen jog over to play with the dog, Ma looks Courtney over, putting her hands on either side of Courtney's face. "Bucky told me all 'bout yer ordeal. How ya feeling?"

"Fine," Courtney lies. "Just a little banged up."

"She got shot," Heather elaborates.

"Where?" Ma asks.

Courtney tentatively lifts her blouse to show the dirty bandages. Ma tsks loudly and shakes her head.

"That there is a foul number the coppers did on ya," she says, letting the blouse drop back down. Turning to Heather, Ma adds, "Why don't ya start setting up the picnic, Heather? Bucky tells me yer cooking has improved."

"She's only burned down one kitchen since we last talked," Al calls from where Scruffy is licking him mercilessly.

"Either I've gotten better or your son's taste buds have gotten more desensitized," Heather says, kissing Ma on the cheek in a rare burst of affection, before turning towards the car to start unloading.

"Gwyneth! Boys!" Ma calls to the three siblings who are dirtying themselves on the soiled riverbed in an attempt to wrestle each other and the dog. "Ya'll ain't children no more! Get up outta the dirt before a bird mistakes ya for earthworms! Bucky, help yer wife unload the car. And will _somebody_ introduce me to the poor ginger still sitting by his lonesome in the Ford?"

"That's Harold. He's our driver," Courtney says as Harold jumps out of the car and jogs over to say hello. "Let me go help with the things—"

Ma holds Courtney in place. "Don't go nowhere. Gwyneth! Let yer brother play with Scruffy and bring the med kit before we sit down to eat."

"It's really all right," Courtney tries to say, but Gwen picks up a small leather case from the side of the road and comes over, looking significantly more dirty than she had when they made their introductions.

"Sure it is," Gwen says with a patented Duncan smirk. "I'm a nurse. Let's see what we can do 'bout this bullet wound business."

* * *

><p>Gwen and Courtney sit in the backseat of the stolen Ford as Gwen carefully stitches up Courtney's side. Every pinch of the needle hurts, but it's no bullet. Leaning up against the window and nursing a flask of whiskey for the pain, Courtney watches across the road as Duncan talks to his mother on the picnic blanket they have stretched out. Heather sits beside him, listening to the conversation Courtney can't hear, while Harold helps Al pick ticks off of Scruffy.<p>

"So. You and Duncan," Gwen says, continuing to dab medicine and stitch Courtney's skin.

"Yeah," Courtney says, not looking at Gwen's work.

"You been running with him long?"

"Since the spring," Courtney says vaguely, because telling her the exact date and time might sound a little obsessive. "Something like eight months now."

Gwen makes a noncommittal noise of approval. Outside the car, Duncan says something somberly to his mother, who nods. He hands her a stack of letters, bound with twine.

"You from Texas?" Gwen asks.

"West Dallas, yeah. Right around the corner."

"Don't have much of an accent for West Dallas," Gwen notes.

Courtney drains the flask and refills it with the whiskey bottle Heather had left in the backseat. "I moved to downtown as an adult after I got a job at Dallas Bank. I taught myself to speak without it. While I'm sober, anyway."

Gwen makes that noncommittal sound again. The next pass of the needle makes Courtney wince.

"You don't seem to have much of an accent either," Courtney says.

"Kicked a lot of it at the hospital," Gwen explains. "The fancy Northern doctors that teach us there rubbed off on me."

Just then, Courtney's side spasms. She screws her eyes shut and drinks deeply straight from the whiskey bottle.

"So. Nursing," she grinds out. "How's that going?"

"Swell, as you can see," Gwen jokes. She pauses, holding a cloth to the half-stitched wound. "We never run out of sick people in these parts. My Pa was a doctor. Or so Ma tells me."

Swerving to avoid the touchy subject of Ma's lovelife, Courtney jokes, "So no criminal business for you?"

Gwen doesn't laugh. "Duncan and Bucky send back enough money to keep Ma and me in the clear, else I might be singing a different tune."

Courtney winces. So much for avoiding touchy subjects.

"But how 'bout you?" Gwen asks without missing a beat. "What gets a banker inta robbing banks?"

Duncan looks over at the car just then, at Courtney, his eyebrows creased with concern. Courtney smiles at him encouragingly, masking her discomfort. He smiles back, a half smile he saves just for her.

"I got tired of being underappreciated," Courtney says by way of explaining everything.

"Well good on you, no one in this family knows the meaning of the word," Gwen chuckles.

As the tipsiness starts to settle in, Courtney puts the whiskey bottle down and shoves the half-full flask into her dress pocket. She keeps quiet as Gwen starts stitching again and turns her wedding band to keep her fingers busy. Outside, Scruffy bounds around the picnic blanket and pokes his nose into the basket. Ma reaches in and tosses him a biscuit.

"You have a lovely family," Courtney murmurs.

Gwen shrugs. "Eh. The loveliness comes and goes. 'Specially when you're the youngest of six and some siblings _I won't mention by name_ like ta volunteer you to piss off neighborhood dogs and jump inta shallow creeks headfirst."

Courtney laughs despite herself.

From the picnic blanket, Duncan cups his hands over his mouth, and shouts, "If ya stitch her up any tighter, Gwen, she ain't gonna be able to move!"

"Hold your horses! I just finished!" Gwen shouts back, putting on the final bandages. "There. Good as new."

Gwen helps Courtney sit up and then hugs her unexpectedly, as Ma had done.

"It's nice ta have another sis-in-law," Gwen says warmly. "With these two dolts as brothers, I never had much experience with sisters."

"Um, I have a sister," Courtney says into Gwen's hair. "She lives in New York."

Gwen pulls back and punches Courtney's shoulder in jest. "And now you've got one more that lives in Dallas."

* * *

><p>Don't forget to keep an eye on <strong>Cid-Vicious<strong>'s DA page, as we are doing our best to get chapters and story images up as simultaneously as possible! And a special thanks to **Contemperina** for acting as Beta for MGB all this time (without any credit. UNTIL NOW)


	31. Flowers

Lunch goes off splendidly. Ma's home cooking is the first thing they've eaten since Joplin that isn't out of a can, and the first home cooking any of them have had in months. Harold asks for seconds before anyone else.

After, Gwen produces her camera from the picnic basket. It's the same brand as the one Courtney lost in Joplin and the sight of it makes her wince, but Duncan encourages her to take some pictures with his family. They all pose together as Harold photographs them. Duncan calls Alejandro out of the frame and takes a picture of just the girls. Then Gwen yanks the camera from his hands and shoves him in Courtney's direction.

"God, Duncan, do you always look like you want ta shit a brick?" Gwen jokes as he and Courtney pose. "Bonnie, give him a kiss. Get him ta lighten up."

Duncan glares venomously at his sister as Courtney obliges, kissing him with a smile for the camera.

The time ticks by and soon, it's four o'clock. The flowers Courtney had picked for her mother have begun to wilt in the car, so she gives half of them to Ma, who promises to put them in a place of honor. The boys, Harold included, find a half eaten baseball in the muddy riverbank and begin tossing it around, Scruffy yipping and darting between their legs.

Heather tries to strike up a conversation with Gwen about the latest in fashion, but from what Courtney overhears, Gwen has less in common with Heather than she does. Gwen smiles simply as Heather informs her of all the things wrong with her wardrobe and keeps smiling without a word as Heather grows more and more irritated by Gwen's lack of participation in the conversation—which only makes Gwen smile wider.

Courtney stays on the picnic blanket with Ma, trying not to move too much and upset her stitches. She drinks the remainder of their wine straight from the bottle and checks the time obsessively as they all wait.

"This spot's a pain in the rump to find," Ma says knowingly. "Why, Gwenith and I drove around for hours the first time tryin' to figure out where the devil it was."

Courtney nods slightly and keeps turning her wedding band anxiously.

"My boy give ya that?" Ma asks, taking Courtney's hand in hers and admiring the ring.

"I... It's not..." Courtney says, staring at her hand. "It's...complicated," she finishes lamely.

Ma turns their hands over so that the more weathered hand is on top. It has neither a wedding ring nor any indication that there ever was one.

"Ain't it always?" Ma says, giving her a gentle squeeze.

After a beat, Courtney squeezes back. Then she pulls her hand back and stands.

"Thank you for waiting. We should go. My mother's not coming."

Without acknowledging Ma's confusion, Courtney makes her way across the road to the Ford. Tears prick behind her eyes, and she rubs them away.

Scruffy barks nearby. Turning, Courtney finds the dog trailing behind her, staring expectantly.

"I'm sorry," she says to the animal. "I should be going. I don't want to get anyone in trouble."

Scruffy whimpers and moves towards her. Courtney backs herself tentatively against the car door, but the dog only nuzzles her hand, requesting a pet. Courtney obliges with a tentative scratch behind the ears.

Duncan jogs over to her, his slacks and hands muddy. "Hey, you alright, doll? Ma says ya wanna go."

"This was wonderful, Duncan," she says, looking at Scruffy, "but my mother's not coming. We can go."

Duncan takes her hand off Scruffy's head and holds it tight. "Ya sure? We ain't passin' through Dallas again for a while."

"I'm sure," she murmurs.

Duncan kisses her forehead, then calls to Al that they should start packing up. Courtney keeps her head down and her eyes on her shoes.

Scruffy tries to nuzzle himself under Courtney's hand again. He begins a whine but cuts off mid-sound. His ears perk. He turns his head to the road, motionless.

Duncan and Courtney turns as well, listening. A car motor rumbles in the distance. Duncan puts a hand on his Colt, and Courtney holds her breath. A car turns the corner and comes into view.

It's not a police car, and it's not Justin's truck. Courtney remains still for a moment longer, before moving towards it. Duncan holds out an arm to stop her.

"We ain't got a clue who that is."

"It's my mother or it's coppers in disguise," Courtney says flatly, "and if it's law, you've got a better shot if I distract them."

Duncan frowns, considers, then lowers his arm. Courtney glances back at the picnic blanket. Al and Heather are both inching towards their guns. Harold has one hand on Ma's shoulder, the other turning over the keys to the Ford. Gwen is watching the car with a surgeon's intensity.

Courtney swallows and walks towards the vehicle.

The car stops a good distance away, and Courtney stops too, still unable to see the driver. She shifts, reaching for her gun.

"...Bonnie?"

Courtney half-sobs, half-laughs. "Mama!"

Forgetting her newly stitched wound, she runs to the car. Mrs. Bons steps out with a stony expression, leaving the engine running. Courtney throws her arms around her mother.

"Mama! Oh, Mama, it's so good to see you! I thought you wouldn't—"

"Are you safe?" her mother demands, pulling back to look Courtney over. "Did they hurt you?"

"No, Mama, I'm fine. I'm just so happy you came. I got you flowers—oh, god damn it, they're still on the picnic blanket..."

Mrs. Bons winces at the language, but Courtney brushes it off, pulling on her mother's hands.

"C'mon, we saved you a plate of food. I want you to meet everyone."

Courtney's mother doesn't budge. She runs a hand down Courtney's cheek, then lets her blank facade crumble into relief.

"Oh, _darling,_" Mrs. Bons says shakily, and pulls Courtney into a hug. She squeezes her tight and—

"_Gah!" _Courtney shouts, jerking back. She presses a hand to her side.

Mrs. Bons stares.

"It's...alright," Courtney insists, breathing through her teeth. "It's just a bad bruise, Mama."

But when Courtney pulls her hand away, blood is speckling through her blouse. She covers it again just as quickly.

Her mother's mouth presses into a tight, flat line.

"Bonnie. Get in the car."

Courtney stares. "What? Why? You just got here."

Mrs. Bons grabs Courtney by her arm and pulls her toward the car. "Promise or no promise, I won't stand by another minute and let you throw your life away because you can't see that you're being manipulated!"

Courtney pulls back. It hurts her side. "Mama, don't be like this. I told you, I'm fine."

"Fine?" her mother accuses. "_This _is your definition of _fine_?"

She yanks Courtney's blouse up to see the line of stitches trickling blood through the bandages, her stomach a zigzag of red lines. She almost dislodges the gun from Courtney's waistband.

"It just nicked me!" Courtney says, pulling the blouse back down. "Duncan took care of it right away, and his sister—"

"Duncan Clyde?" her mother clarifies, eyes hard.

"_Yes," _Courtney snaps. "He took care of it, and I want you to come—"

"Courtney Bons," her mother hisses, "I am not getting within ten yards of that _murderer_. And if you had _any _God-given sense still in you, _you_ wouldn't either!" Hands on either side of her daughter's face, Mrs. Bond pleads, "It's not too late to turn back now."

Courtney takes a step back, eyes flashing.

"_Don't _call him a murderer," she whispers.

"What happened in Joplin aside—"

"They shot at us first! That officer was trying to kill me. Duncan saved my life."

"Is that what he told you?" her mother growls.

"No, that's what _I'm _telling you," Courtney says. "It was self-defense."

"And the other nine dead officers?" Mrs. Bon asks, voice icy. "And the Joplin county sheriff? Did Duncan Clyde tell you _that_ was self-defense too?"

Courtney blinks. Nine? No, she only saw him pull the trigger on the officer in front of the car. One officer. Everything else was—

Bottles on a fencepost.

Courtney's stomach flips over on itself. She's going to be sick.

"What caliber bullets were they, Mama?"

"What?"

"The police officers," Courtney demands. She swallows thickly, voice shaking. "Were they killed with Browning Automatic rounds? ...Were they .38s?"

"Can you _hear_ yourself? It doesn't _matter_." Her mother grabs her by the arm again. "What matters is that man has a body count in the dozens, and I'm not going to let him add you to that list!"

"There a problem, Mrs. Bons? Yer food's gettin' cold."

Courtney's mother drops her arm like it's burning and backs up a solid two yards away. Duncan comes up behind Courtney and wraps an arm around her shoulders.

"You a fan of peach cobbler, ma'am?" he asks cordially. "Because my ma makes a hell of a damn good peach cobbler."

Mrs. Bons glares at Duncan. _"You."_

Her eyes cut to Courtney, but Courtney doesn't return the gaze. Instead, she finds herself leaning on Duncan, lightheaded. Her vision starts to spin.

"Baby, did you tell yer ma we saved her a plate of food?" Duncan asks.

Courtney nods dumbly.

"What have you done to my daughter?" Mrs. Bones hisses.

The pleasantness in Duncan's tone doesn't flinch. "Why, I've taken your daughter on a grand tour of the ole U.S. of A., all the way from Louisiana to Illinois. I've opened her eyes to the wonders our president and all his men have wrought on us poor folk, and I've taught her how to take it back for herself."

Courtney buries her face in Duncan's shoulder and blinks her eyes rapidly, struggling to breathe. Bottles on a fence post... Nine dead officers...

She's going to have a panic attack. She hasn't had a panic attack since she was eighteen. Being held hostage and handcuffed and shot hadn't brought it on. Yet here she is, a hair's breadth away from collapsing into a pile of ragged breathing and raw nerves in front of Duncan and her mother.

"You're a _monster_," Mrs. Bons accuses.

Duncan tips his hat at her. "That I may be, ma'am. But I promise ya, it ain't got no reflection on how I treat yer daughter. I ain't risked Bonnie's life for a single dime. Not till she was ready. Why, we've had our shot at some grand ole scores, and I decided against 'em. For Bonnie's safety."

His words pull Courtney back from her spiral. They clear the echoing in her ears.

"What?" she murmurs, looking up at him.

But Duncan's entire focus is on Mrs. Bons. "You know, Bonnie's always talking about settling down and living near you when all the heat on us clears."

Mrs. Bons bristles. Behind them, Scruffy barks. Their crew and Duncan's family are still by the picnic blanket, no doubt watching this unfold.

"You won't live that long," Mrs. Bons whispers.

Courtney feels Duncan's breath catch, though nothing in his demeanor changes.

"Mama," Courtney begs, turning to her mother, "please, have lunch with us. Enjoy this time we have together."

Mrs. Bons turns away sharply, a hand over her mouth.

"Why?" she whispers. "Because we might not get another chance? Because next time I see you, you could be on a slab?"

Duncan hesitates, then reaches into his pocket to pull out a few bills. It's all the money they have.

"Mrs. Bons," he starts, holding the money out, "yer daughter and I—"

"She's not my daughter."

The ground under Courtney's feet disappears.

"Mama? Mama, don't say that..."

"My daughter would come home with me," Mrs. Bons says, brokenly. "My daughter knows right from wrong. She knows what God gave her and what the Devil's work looks like." She straightens and looks Courtney straight in the eye. "You are not my daughter."

Mrs. Bons gets in her car. Courtney rushes to the window.

"Mama, don't go," she begs. "It doesn't have to be this way. I'm still the same person! I'm still your little Bonnie."

Mrs. Bons puts the car in reverse without looking at her daughter.

"You come home, Courtney," her mother says, "or you are dead to me."

"Mama, please—!"

Duncan yanks Courtney back as Mrs. Bons' car jerks into motion, reversing down the road.

"No!" Courtney shouts, fighting to escape Duncan's grip. "No, please! I can't let— She _can't— _Mama! _Mama!_"

The car three-point-turns and takes off down the road at full speed.

Duncan turns Courtney around in his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, baby," he whispers. "It's gonna be okay."

"_No_," Courtney cries into his shirt. "No… How could she? _How could she_?"

"I'm so sorry, baby."

Courtney collapses against him, sobbing. He rubs her back, and holds her carefully. Her side is still bleeding.

"Duncan?" Gwen's voice calls, hesitant.

"Give us a moment," Duncan says.

Scruffy barks once. He snarls and keeps snarling.

"Duncan," Gwen says again.

Courtney looks up with bleary eyes at the tone of Gwen's voice. She's staring down the road Mrs. Bons came in on. Scruffy is staring in the same direction, baring all of his teeth. Duncan and Courtney look that way.

Mrs. Bons and her car are gone. Instead, under the rustling of wind in the trees, another car can be heard coming down the road, precisely in their direction.

Gwen swears.

"You weren't expecting anyone else, were you?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Another chapter and another GORGEOUS image by CID-Vicious for "Clippings"! Here is a preview of 32 as a thank you for your patience:

_"Anything goes south, the law can't hold me for long. No criminal record," Gwen says, looking between her brothers. "Shake a leg. Take Ma and hide. I got this."_

_"We can outrun them," Duncan insists._

_"And let them use Ma and me as bait?" _

_Heather opens the back seat for Scruffy to jump in and scowls at Courtney. "That all depends on what exactly Bonnie's mother told them."_

_"Mama wouldn't…" Courtney whispers to herself. "She promised…"_

_"Clyde!" Harold calls. "What's the call?"_


	32. Captain

"Grab everything," Duncan orders. "Get to the Ford, we're making tracks!"

Holding her side, Courtney sprints with Duncan and Gwen back to the picnic area. Heather grabs the picnic basket and their leftovers, throwing everything in the car as Al helps his mother to her feet and Harold jumps into the driver's seat.

"Duncan," Gwen says, keeping an eye out for the incoming car, "forget the fact we don't all fit in the Ford—"

"We'll make do," he snaps and turns to get in the car.

Gwen blocks him. "You run with me and Ma in the car and we both know you're gonna have ta double back to drop us off at the house. If the law knows you were visiting folks, they'll ambush you the moment you step back inta Dallas."

"How would they know that?" Courtney asks.

Duncan and Gwen cast her a pitying look, and her stomach bottoms out. Her mother.

"I have an idea," Gwen says to Duncan, one eye still on the bend in the road, ears tuned to the sound of the car. "They ain't seen nothing yet. Take Ma and hide in the trees. I'll stay by the car, play up some car trouble, get them ta turn around and go."

Duncan scowls. "There could be more cars."

"_Hermano, _if it's an ambush, they would have sprung it at noon when we arrived," Al says, throwing Gwen's camera and the bundled up picnic blanket in the backseat. He frowns at Duncan. "I don't like it either, but _la niña's_ idea is good."

"Anything goes south, the law can't hold me for long. No criminal record," Gwen says, looking between her brothers. "Shake a leg. Take Ma and hide. I got this."

"We can outrun them," Duncan insists.

"Sure ya can," Ma says, joining them with a sober expression. "But can me and yer sister?"

Heather opens the back seat so Scruffy can jump in and scowls at Courtney. "That all depends on what _exactly_ Bonnie's mother told them."

"Mama wouldn't…" Courtney whispers to herself. "She promised…"

The Ford roars to life. "Clyde!" Harold shouts through the window. "What's the call?"

Duncan looks between them all. Courtney gulps and leans heavily on the car.

Tires screech. Duncan's family, Courtney, and Harold all look at the road. At the corner of forest, the car has turned the corner, still too far away to tell the driver.

Not too far to tell that it's a police car.

"Goddammit," Duncan mutters. He grabs Gwen with one arm and kisses the crown of her head. "Godfuckingdammit. Don't get yerself fucking arrested. Everyone get to the trees."

Harold shuts the car off and tosses Gwen the keys. Duncan grabs Courtney by the wrist and runs with her to the border of trees beyond where they'd had their picnic. Al and Heather help Ma.

"If I can score a date with this one, then everyone in this family will be 'involved' with the law," Gwen mutters, just loud enough to be heard.

They hide in pairs. Courtney and Duncan duck on their stomachs behind a bush. Al and Heather crouch behind a fallen tree. Harold and Ma hide not far from them.

Everyone is holding their breath. But Courtney's lungs are collapsing on themselves, her panic attack making it difficult to breath quietly.

With his gun in one hand, Duncan puts his other arm around Courtney and pulls her to his side.

"Any of us so much as hiccup, and Gwen's in trouble. Ya hear?"

Courtney nods and cups a hand across her own mouth to try and regulate her shuddering gasps.

From their roots-view of the road, Courtney watches Gwen walk around the car, propping up the hood. She looks into the engine and pulls something out, putting it in her pocket.

A dozen feet to her right, Courtney hears Al whisper, "Good girl."

Gwen rolls down the back window of the car so Scruffy can get some air. Courtney fights the drumming of blood in her ears to hear properly as the car finally arrives within spotting range and stops, engine shutting off.

After a prolonged beat, Gwen turns around as if just noticing the police. "Perfect timing, officers! How'd you know I was stuck out here all by myself with a faulty car?"

The car doors open and two officers step out. One is a tall woman with wild red hair tied messily into a bun. The other is a shorter man, green eyed with cropped dark hair.

"Well!" the lady officer says, hands on her belt, "some of us have keen trouble-detecting abilities!"

"That's a hell of an ability," Gwen jokes back, leaning against the open front of the car. "Either of you know how ta fix a Ford?"

The male officer doesn't answer. He purses his lips and glances around the area, looking at the bridge and partial road, then specifically to the bushes. Courtney cringes closer to Duncan, gripping his shoulder.

"A Ford, huh?" The lady officer pokes her head in the hood. "Never gotten my hands on one of these bad boys before."

Disregarding Gwen and his partner, the male officer meanders around the car itself, looking in at the backseat full of picnic supplies and hidden guns. Scruffy snarls at him. The officer tsks once at the dog then leisurely walks out into the field where they had been taking their picnic. He stares at the grass and starts scuffing it with his boots.

"He knows," Courtney hisses under her breath. "Duncan, he knows."

"I know," he says, holding her and his pistol tighter.

Despite keeping one officer entertained, Gwen keeps a trained eye on the male officer's movements.

"You know about cars?" Gwen asks the lady officer without taking her eyes off the man.

"Oh yeah," the redhead says, voice muffled by the engine. "My ex-husband used to own a gas station in Arkansas. Won it in a card game, if you can believe it! We got all sorts of car trouble there."

Courtney can feel Al and Harold and Heather's eyes on her. She forces herself to focus on controlling her breath, pressing her face into Duncan's shirt, no longer watching the scene unfold.

"Here's your problem! Your carburetor is missing!"

"Really?" Gwen says innocently. "Is that important?"

"If you want your car to run, yeah! How did you get all the way out here without a carburetor?"

"It's an old road. It might have jostled loose." Then, much louder, Gwen calls, "What do _you_ think, officer?"

There's a long beat where no one answers. Courtney keeps her eyes screwed shut, listening to the crunch of boots in grass.

"Well, Miss Gwen Marie," the male officer says in a New York accent, "I guess that's as good an excuse as any."

Courtney's breath hitches. She claws Duncan's back, biting down hard on his collarbone to keep from screaming. She knows that voice, the one at the door, in all her nightmares since Joplin.

Through the engulfing panic, she hears Gwen say, "I think you've got me mixed up with someone else, mister. If you can give me a lift back inta town, you and I could get something ta drink and _properly_ move on ta first names."

"Your brothers have taught you well," the New York officer says in reply. "But trust me when I say this'll go smoother for all of us if we can agree on a few key facts. Namely, that your brothers Duncan Clyde and Alejandro Barrow were just here."

Duncan grips Courtney tighter to him. Whether for himself or her sake, Courtney doesn't care.

"Smoother for us," Gwen repeats, wary. "Who is us?"

"Right, we've never formally met." The crunch of boots moves about the grass again. "Captain Trent Hamer, Bureau of Investigations. My partner, Izzy Hinton."

"Howdy!" Izzy chirps.

"I'm in charge of the special team tasked by Governor Ferguson to track down your brothers and bring an end to their criminal activities." He pauses. "By any means necessary."

A moment of tense silences passes, shattered by Gwen's sudden laughter.

"Really?" she says. "The good ole governor tasked a Yankee ta bring in the two most notorious criminals south of the Mason-Dixon?"

"Really," he answers, unphased. "Because I'm the most notorious lawman _north _of the Mason-Dixon."

Gwen sounds soberly unconvinced. "Haven't heard of you."

Amused, Trent explains, "I'm retired. _Was _retired."

"You're too young ta be retired," Gwen scoffs.

"I'm very good at my job. I did find your secret spot here, didn't I?"

"You had help," Gwen says.

Now it's Trent who laughs, genuinely. It makes Courtney feel even more sick. "Your brothers _did _teach you well. Yes, we received an anonymous tip that the Barrow Gang would be meeting with their families at the Devil's Back Porch. We got the incorrect time. Seems our caller had business to take care of before the laws busted up the party."

Courtney thinks of her mother begging her to go with her. She thinks of her mother's words that she and Duncan wouldn't live that long. She digs her nails into Duncan's clothes.

Gwen scoffs. "Well if you know so much, Mr. Hammer—"

"Captain Hamer."

"—then I'm sure you don't need my help tracking down these two criminals you seem ta be hunting."

Trent sighs, as if tired. "Five criminals, and you know exactly who they are."

"You seem awfully convinced of that without proof."

Trent's boots walk towards Gwen's voice. "So you're telling me, that if I confiscate this camera you have in your backseat, it's not going to have pictures of this family gathering I just missed?"

Duncan snarls a quiet swear that only Courtney hears.

"Ta do that, you'd have ta arrest me for something," Gwen volleys back, no longer sounding as smug.

"Officer Hinton," Trent says loudly, "what was the make and model of that car stolen just outside of Joplin, Missouri?"

"Ford Model A," Izzy supplies breezily. "Black. Custom leather seats."

"Would you say this is a visual match, officer?"

"I would, Captain."

"Meaning we'd have enough probable cause to search this vehicle and all it's contents and arrest Miss Gwen Marie for inter-state theft, yes?"

"Right you are, Captain."

If Courtney looks up, she's going to scream. She focuses on the feel of Duncan's muddy shirt, his tensing muscles underneath. Her hip digs into the dirt as she waits, listening.

"You can bring me in," Gwen says tightly, "but if you know my family so well, you know you can't hold me hostage for them."

"Hostage?" Trent laughs again. "This isn't gang warfare, miss. This is the law versus lawbreakers. It's a shoe in for who's going to come out swinging in the end."

There's a smirk in her voice when Gwen says, "You've never been up against my brothers."

"Ah yes, your brothers." Trent sounds cordial. "The most notorious criminals south of the Mason-Dixon, you say. Who wouldn't have gotten half as far without the cunning of one Heather Barrow and the blind loyalty of a Mrs. Bonnie Jones."

Courtney bites down harder on Duncan's collarbone, fighting back a strangled sound. Heather doesn't swear quite as quietly as she should.

"The Barrow Gang's uncatchable," Gwen boasts. "They sensed you coming and skeddadled off before I could blink."

"Leaving you with a car full of evidence?" Izzy says, sounding puzzled.

"Wouldn't be anything suspicious if you and I didn't know what we were looking for, Izzy," Trent explains. "Just a girl with car trouble. Doesn't even have a criminal record."

"My my." Gwen's tone is flirtatious. "What _are_ they teaching at the police academy these days."

"Theft's a crime, miss. This here," Trent knocks a hand against the car, "can put you away for two years."

Courtney feels Duncan shift, readying his gun. She tugs down his arm and shakes her head. He glares at her.

"Or," Trent continues, "you can cooperate with us and we'll work out an arrangement."

"You can be as sweet as honey, Mr. Hammer—"

"_Captain—"_

"—but there isn't a power on God's green earth that's going ta make me tell you where my brothers went."

"Don't worry," Izzy announces. "We already know where they're going."

"You see," Trent says, and the confidence in his tone jolts right through Courtney's spine, "Duncan Clyde prides himself on his driving. He's got a memory for maps and cars unlike any man I've ever seen. He is _very_ good at what he does. And like any man good at a job, he develops preferences. He likes Fords. He loves foreclosed houses. And he's built himself a very particular network of back roads to get from state to state. A network I've been studying the last twelve months."

"You know my brother so well, why haven't you caught him yet?" Gwen goads.

"I'm getting closer," the officer answers, matter-of-fact as he leans against the car. "The med kit in here proves that. Did you know his old man's a copper?"

Duncan freezes.

"He works with the Bienville Parish department in Louisiana," the captain elaborates. "I had the pleasure of talking to him while collecting evidence. He denies Clyde's his son, of course, but the resemblance is uncanny. Bet it would tickle your brother pink to know he's got the law in his genes."

Courtney looks over to Ma. With Harold's hand clamped over her mouth, she's started to cry. If Courtney wasn't in the midst of such an intense panic attack, if her hands weren't suddenly grabbing fistfuls of Duncan's jacket to reign in his flaring temper, she might be crying too.

"See?" Gwen says, unable to hide the stony hatred under her tone. "You've got all the info you need. Nothing I can offer you."

"On the contrary," Trent says, and Courtney watches as he comes closer to Gwen. "I need you to pass on a message for me."

He leans in close to her, mouth to her ear, and whispers something Courtney can't hear.

Gwen jerks back from him so sharply, Izzy's hand flinches to her gun.

"Fuck you," Gwen snarls. "You go right _the fuck_ ta hell."

"Suit yourself," Trent says, grabbing Gwen by the arm and handcuffing her. "Miss Gwen Marie, you are under arrest for possession of stolen goods. Izzy, check her pockets."

The redhead complies, perhaps a little too gleefully. "_There's_ your carburetor!"

"You're not going ta catch them," Gwen declares as Trent walks her to the police car. "And you're going ta regret not taking me up on my offer for coffee."

"I already do," Trent answers, putting Gwen in the backseat of the police car and shutting the door. "But we'll still have a nice long time to get to know each other on the trip to the station." He walks back over to Izzy and mutters, "Stay here with the car and the dog. I'll radio in another patrol to help categorize evidence."

"Aye aye, Captain," Izzy answers, grinning from ear to ear.

Captain Trent Hamer returns to the police car, turning over the engine.

The sound is loud enough to mask Al's whisper-shout to Duncan. "If we jump her at the same time, we can take her."

Duncan nods, pulling Courtney's hands off him. Courtney grabs him again just as quickly before he can stand.

"What?! She hasn't done anything," she hisses.

The police car drives off, leaving Izzy cooing to an angry Scruffy in the backseat.

"She's a copper," Duncan growls. "They arrested Gwen."

"So she deserves to _die?"_ Courtney says.

"This ain't a discussion," Duncan snaps, starting to rise, pistol at the ready.

Courtney grabs his wrist in a vice. "Duncan, shoot her and I walk."

He stops and stares at her. The sound of Trent's car begins to dim.

"You're riled about Gwen. I get it. But we've got nine dead coppers on our hands," Courtney says viciously. "Maybe more. And maybe they deserved it, Duncan, but this woman _doesn't_. I _won't_ have another dead copper on myhead." She holds his glare. "Kill her and I'm leaving."

The scariest part isn't the way Duncan looks at her, like he's never seen her before. The scariest part is that Courtney can't tell if she's bluffing or not.

Duncan jerks out of her grip, straightens up and fires once.

Izzy cries out and falls against the car, clutching at her leg. Scruffy lunges at her through the window, teeth snapping on air.

Duncan cuts Courtney a glance hard enough to cut stone, before stepping out from the bushes and leaving Courtney alone in the dirt. Al and Heather follow in his wake, weapons drawn.

"Nice and easy, officer," he drawls. "Let's go for a ride, shall we?"


	33. Hostage

The Ford is silent. Duncan focuses on the roads, twisting and turning with maneuvers that would leave most people dizzy. From the backseat, Courtney keeps her eyes on Officer Izzy Hinton's bleeding leg. With one hand pressing the picnic blanket to the officer's wound, Courtney holds Izzy's gun in her other hand, trained on the woman's chest.

For her part, the policewoman hasn't said a word to either of them since being dragged into the car. She grits her teeth against the pain caused by the rattling car and mutters a lengthy conversation with herself. Courtney can't make out any of it.

The car jumps on something in the road. The officer swears vividly and screws her eyes shut.

"There's a flask in my pocket," Courtney says. "If you can reach it, you can have whatever's left."

Izzy opens an eye and glances at Courtney's dress pocket. Reaching with surprising flexibility, she grabs the flask, uncorks it, and drains it. Duncan has more in the glove compartment. Courtney doesn't ask for it.

"Cheers," Izzy says with a grin and wince.

Courtney puts more pressure on the policewoman's leg and says, "I'm sorry. About...all this."

Izzy doesn't answer right away. Her orange hair comes undone at the next jolt of the car. It falls down her back in a cascade.

"Bonnie Jones," she says, without inflection.

"Yeah," Courtney answers, eyes on her hands. "That's me."

Izzy smiles lopsidedly. "Wasn't it weird, being Bonnie Bons before you got married?"

The question comes out of nowhere. Courtney plays off her surprise.

"I, uh, liked the sound of it."

Izzy laughs, straining a little as the car takes a sharp turn. "Bonnie Bons and Justin Jones. Like comic strip characters."

Courtney doesn't take her eyes off the wound, but a glint of light catches on her wedding ring. She feels Izzy looking at it and straightens the aim of the gun in her hand. It does nothing to the contemplative expression on the policewoman's face.

"His father just passed, you know," Izzy says. "Heart attack out of nowhere. Boom. Dead. Wasn't even that old."

"...I'm sorry," Courtney admits. "He was a nice man." She keeps her eyes focused on the checkered pattern of the blanket, and how the red and white squares are almost all red now.

The car races down the road. Courtney can still feel the policewoman's eyes on her wedding ring.

Izzy says, "He misses you. Justin."

Courtney folds the picnic blanket to an area that isn't soaked in blood, pressing it to the officer's skin with renewed strength. She doesn't answer and doesn't meet the woman's gaze.

Izzy's hand reaches down to lay over Courtney's, her nails bitten to the quick. Courtney flicks her eyes up, confused, and it takes her a moment to name the look on Izzy's face.

Pity.

Through her bangs, Courtney chances a look at Duncan. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

Izzy looks at him too, before looking back at Courtney. Then, she winks conspiratorially.

Courtney pulls back her hand. As Izzy presses the cloth to her own wound, Courtney shifts to the other end of the bench, both hands on her gun, expression fierce.

"I don't know what my mother told you," she growls, "but everything I've done this last year has been because I _wanted _to. I _left _Justin. And for good reasons. I wasn't kidnapped, or brainwashed, or whatever else Mama would have you believe. I don't miss Justin, _or _Dallas. Mama doesn't understand…"

Her mother's voice rings out in her memory, disowning her, refusing to listen, and Courtney has to squeeze her eyes shut to keep the anguish from swallowing her.

When the feeling passes, Courtney opens her eyes and finds Izzy gleefully reaching under the front seat and pulling out the bottle of whiskey Heather and Al hadn't finished at the picnic. She braces herself and pours the liquor on her leg, hissing as the amber liquid stains the blanket and the leather seats.

Courtney waits for Izzy's face to relax, then demands, "Tell me about your ex-husband. The one in Arkansas, who won a general store in a card game."

"Oh, Owen?" Izzy shrugs. "What's there to say?"

"If you're as thorough as Captain Hamer says you are," she says, fighting through the stutter of her heartbeat at his name, "then you already know that I know him."

"Yup," Izzy chirps. "Crazier than a bedbug, that Owen. No _wonder _we didn't work out."

"He's a nice man," Courtney says defensively.

"Too much of a good guy," Izzy sighs, rolling her eyes. "He doesn't really believe there are 'bad people' in the world. I guess it's why you two got along so well."

Courtney doesn't act fast enough to suppress her flinch.

"What are you talking about?" Courtney says. "I robbed him."

"And I'm queen of China," Izzy answers, laughing at her own joke. "Owen's always been a terrible liar. And, for the record, so are you."

Leaning forward, Courtney points the gun down at Izzy's other leg.

"If you don't shut up right now," Courtney growls. "I'm shooting your other leg. Am I lying?"

Izzy checks on Duncan again. Courtney looks too. He's watching the road, but he's gritting his teeth hard enough to see the veins in his jaw.

Angry, Courtney snaps in Izzy's face. "Hey! Look at me when I'm threatening you!"

Shrugging, the policewoman looks back at Courtney. She keeps a hand pressed to her wound.

"I don't think you're going to shoot me, Bonnie," she says casually. "In fact, I don't think you've ever shot anyone. I don't think you meant for any of this to happen, and I _know _you didn't sign up for the mess the Barrows have gotten you into."

Courtney opens her mouth, then closes it, fighting a sinking realization in her stomach.

"Oh, I'm like a human lie detector," Izzy brags when Courtney doesn't answer. "That's what they told me at the academy. I can read the truth _all _over you"

"What are you doing?" Courtney whispers, glancing nervously at Duncan. If Duncan starts to think she's insincere in her actions… If he starts to doubt her or think she's playing some elaborate game with him and his family...

Izzy leans forward suddenly, expression wiped of amusement.

"Helping you," Izzy says with quiet intensity. "_Let me._"

Courtney doesn't have the chance to answer. The car screeches to a stop, throwing Courtney and Izzy off the bench and against the front seats. Izzy clutches her leg, gasping, and Courtney has to press a hand against her own side, crumpling on the floor between the seats.

Before either of them can recover, the door on Izzy's side of the car opens. Duncan reaches in, grabs Izzy under the arms, and dumps her on the side of the road. Reaching across the bench, he grabs Izzy's gun from Courtney, points it in the air, and fires the full round of bullets one after the other.

"Get in the front," he orders, dumping Izzy's gun beside her and shutting the door.

Courtney tries to pull herself up to the seat. Her side cramps, bruised by the throw.

"I'm fine back here," she says.

Duncan gets behind the wheel and peels off. By the time Courtney makes it back up onto the bench and looks out the window, Izzy is a receding dot on the side of the barren road.

"Duncan… Baby?"

"I ain't keen on coppers getting in my head," Duncan says without looking at her. "Brace yerself."

Courtney grabs the door handle as Duncan takes a sharp turn onto another dirt road, hidden by trees, then doubles back. As he does, Courtney swallows hard and folds up the bloody picnic blanket.

* * *

><p>Heather, Harold, and Al had stayed behind to take Ma and Scruffy home in Gwen's car, only after Duncan and Al had reassured Ma that Gwen would be fine. The two of them had then agreed to meet up at "the spot" in Oklahoma.<p>

After leaving Officer Izzy Hinton, Duncan and Courtney spend the next four days in a motel on the border of Oklahoma, waiting for the others. They burn the picnic blanket.

Duncan takes turns with her standing at attention for when the others arrive. They never sleep at the same time. For the most part, Courtney doesn't sleep at all. She closes her eyes and hears Trent Hamer's voice at the door of the Joplin apartment. She sees the copper being shot in front of the car and imagines the other eight going down in similar ways. She hears Izzy and her mother implying that none of it is her fault, when it so clearly is.

On night four, while Duncan sleeps, Courtney plucks a sheet of stationery from the small desk in the corner of the room and writes a letter to her mother. She begs her understanding for the choices she's made. She promises money and an easy retirement when she and Duncan finally get out of the game. She tells her Mama that despite everything, she'll always love her.

When she finishes, she rouses Duncan.

"Baby, I wrote my mother a letter," she whispers. "How can I get it to her?"

"When we're next in Dallas," he mutters.

"But you said we wouldn't be passing through for a long time. I need to send it to her."

"You can't send yer ma a letter, doll," Duncan says into his pillow.

"But we said such awful things to each other," she whispers. Her hand trembles as she passes it over his shoulder. "I'll send it under a fake name."

"Not even under a fake name," he says flatly. "I'm sorry, but ya gotta do what Al and I do. Write yer letters and wait till ya see yer ma in person to hand them to her. There's no other way that's safe."

"Please," she insists. "I'll write it in code. I'll let you look over every word! Just please let me tell her... She has to know..."

"Know what?" Duncan asks without turning over.

Courtney squeezes her eyes and swallows hard. She brings her legs to her chest. "I'm sorry. Never mind. Go back to sleep."

Duncan pauses under the blanket.

"Yer ashamed of me now, is that it?"

Courtney recoils at the ice in tone. "No! I didn't say that!"

"Ya sure about that?"

On her hands and knees, Courtney looks down at Duncan. "I'm sorry about Joplin. I want to tell her I'm sorry _about Joplin!_"

"Why? You did yer job," he says, voice low. "I told ya there ain't no shame in that."

"I never wanted to _kill_ anyone!"

"I told ya," he growls, "ya _didn't_."

"You don't know that!"

Duncan grows more tense by the minute. "Far as the laws are concerned, everything fired from our side was me or Al."

"I don't _care _about the authorities, I care about the truth! Did I kill anyone?"

Courtney doesn't get an answer.

"Duncan. _Did. I. Kill. Anyone?"_

"No," he snaps. "_Drop it."_

Courtney glares down at him. Her voice rises. "Did you know your father was a copper?"

Duncan tucks their blanket up under his chin. "I ain't talking about this."

"You don't want to talk to me?" Courtney snaps. "Fine! That's nothing new." She flops back down on the bed. "You lied to my mother about wanting to settle down close to her. You lied about how many people you killed and about having a sister. It's not like our entire fucking relationship is founded on lies."

Duncan turns enough that she can see the challenge in his eyes. "Ya don't trust me."

"Don't change the-"

"No!" He sits up sharply. "_You _don't trust me! Fuck! A batshit crazy copper and yer Jesus-happy bitch of a ma show up after months and months and say ya shouldn't trust me and just like that, ya _don't!"_

"_Don't _talk about my mother like that," Courtney hisses, sitting up slowly. "Because I can find a few choice things to point out about _yours_."

Duncan slaps her.

Holding a hand to her face, Courtney has half a mind to pull her gun on him. Instead, she forces herself to act calm until, with labored breathing, Duncan's brain catches up to his actions. He stares at his hand like he has no idea who it belongs to, then meets her vicious glare with a startled look. He pulls back his hand.

Finally, after a long beat, he turns away and settles down into bed.

"Go to sleep," he says, voice hollow. "I ain't having this conversation again."

Courtney throws the letter onto the bed, finished except for the return address, and all but runs to the bathroom. From the bottom of the sink, she pulls out a whiskey bottle left behind by the motel room's former occupants and gulps it down like water.

Hours later, there's a knock at the door. Tucked between the toilet and the tub, Courtney jumps to her feet and staggers against the wall, bracing for the hail of bullets. She fumbles to pull out her gun with shaking hands and staggers to the door of the bathroom. On the bed, Duncan is awake and aiming his scattergun at the peephole.

"Is Mr. Patricks here?" Alejandro's voice calls.

Duncan tosses aside the gun and jogs to the door, throwing it open.

"He and all his children," Duncan answers, throwing his arms around his brother, "ya sonova fuckin' bitch."

He and Al hug each other tightly as Heather and Harold peek inside the motel room.

"We got Ma back to the house without any problems," Harold reports when Duncan pulls back from his brother.

"Any trouble on your end, _hermano_?" Al asks.

Duncan cuts Courtney a quick look, then says, "No. Dumped the law and headed straight here."

"Wonderful," Heather says dryly. She looks between Duncan and Courtney. "Ready to make tracks?"

Without meeting anyone's eye, Courtney stumbles out the door and to the car, muttering, "Am I fucking ever."


	34. Camping

With their names in every paper in the country and the feeling of Trent Hamer breathing down their necks, Duncan declares their safehouses unsafe. As a result, the gang spends the next few weeks camping in the woods in Oklahoma and Iowa, bathing in streams, and eating canned foods or whatever small animals they can shoot, sometimes not eating at all. Duncan insists it's just like a camping trip. No one shares his sentiments.

During the day, Duncan, Heather, and Al spend hours combing over places to rob. They plan carefully and pick the most worthwhile targets. But times have gotten tougher. There isn't more than five dollars in any of the registers they rob.

The Barrow Gang falls into a rhythm: pick a gas station or grocery store, take the money and supplies, drive the car six to ten hours, ditch the car close enough to civilization to hotwire the next one, find woods, camp, pick another target.

The couples take turns sleeping in the tent or in the car and pass Harold off every two days. Courtney lies next to Duncan every night without touching him. They spend weeks sleeping together without sleeping together, and Duncan makes no attempt to change that. She continues not speaking to Alejandro as well. Since Joplin, anything he wants to convey he sends through his wife or through Harold, and Courtney sends them back with one-word answers.

She tries to write some poems, but they all come out angry and end up in the fire. Another letter to her mother also ends in ashes.

Finally, one afternoon while the others are out on a heist and she's left watching the camp, Courtney writes, uncensored, to her sister. She tells her about that fateful day at the bank, leaving Dallas, the gun training, the heists—all of them, and her role in each one. She vents to Bridgette about Duncan's awful mood swings, her animosity with Al and with Heather, the insufferable car trips, the aching loneliness, her guilt over the murders she unwittingly assisted… Pages and pages on end until Courtney reaches for the next sheet of notebook paper and realizes she's run out. She folds up the letter and hides it in the seam of her dress.

On the mornings when there's no robbery, Courtney takes long walks through the woods by herself. She throws rocks into creeks and watches the trees finish changing colors and eventually strip bare for the winter. The treks aren't peaceful. Courtney draws her pistol on every small mammal or bird that so much as breaks a twig. She tells herself there isn't anyone following her. She tells herself the wind in the trees isn't Trent Hamer whispering behind her back, telling his men to wait for her to lead them back to Duncan and the others.

She takes the longest way back to camp anyway.

One evening, while Al sets up the campfire and Duncan fights with Heather over sewing up their tattered clothes, Courtney talks with Harold.

"I still have nightmares about Joplin," she says, sitting in the shade of a thick-trunked tree. She shuffles the fallen leaves with her heels. "The others don't even flinch at the mention of it."

"I flinch," Harold admits. "Every time I wake up, I think I hear a hail of bullets."

"I hear Trent Hamer's voice," she admits aloud. "Like he's hiding in the woods and watching me."

They're both quiet, letting the confessions sink into the nearly winter air. Courtney pulls out her top-break pistol, opening and closing it with a satisfying _Clack!_ She runs her fingers over Duncan's inscription, then over the scarring flesh of her side.

"I thought I was going to die," Harold whispers. "I've never been close to something so loud, I didn't realize… I didn't know…"

"I'm sorry I shouted at you," Courtney mumbles.

"It's okay, Miss Bonnie," he says. "We were all out of sorts."

"Not all of us."

Duncan and Heather's argument devolves into name calling, insults, and accusations of sexism. Al exhales a long breath of Spanish swears, abandons the fire, and goes to take care of it. Courtney watches with no intention to assist.

Harold looks on and cringes, his shoulders drawing up to his ears. "Don't tell Clyde about this, okay? I know he already thinks I'm not cut out for this job."

"Okay."

Harold grabs a stick and starts pushing leaves around in the dirt. "Do you think we'll ever be like them?"

Courtney tenses. "We are like them, Harold. We're all criminals. We're all the same."

"No, that's not—I mean," Harold struggles to find the words, "do you think the nightmares will ever go away?"

"Do you still have that flask on you?" Courtney says.

Harold pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to her. Courtney takes a long swig, then shakes it for emphasis.

"I get a little bit closer every day."

* * *

><p>When the cool autumn air turns abruptly into winter, the gang breaks into a clothing store for jackets and scarves. They drive more northeast than usual to keep out of their old pattern. As the temperature drops, the gang's money, and their patience, continue to dwindle.<p>

Finally, in Lucerne, Indiana, two elderly owners of a grocery store decide to put up a fight for the ten dollars in their register. Heather and Al are in the aisles, bickering over whether to take more groceries than originally planned. Duncan is having the wife clear the register. Harold is in the car. No one is paying attention when the gentleman pulls out a hatchet and lunges at Courtney. Even with all of her paranoia, Courtney is caught unprepared. Duncan isn't.

He puts two bullets in the man's chest. Courtney hears the woman's screams for hours afterwards.

That evening, camped out in woods south of the city, Courtney numbly tends the campfire and nurses Harold's half-full flask of scotch. Duncan and Al stand out of her view, on the other side of the Ford, arguing loudly. Each brother blames the other for the incident. After a half hour of this, Harold rubs his temples and goes off to collect wood.

Another fifteen minutes later, and Heather comes to sit beside Courtney. From the inside of her woolen coat, she produces a metal nail file and begins to work on her nails in the light of the campfire.

"We need to talk," Heather says, without looking up from her hands. "Those two are inconsolable when they get like this. Might as well."

"What? Does my outfit look atrocious today?" Courtney asks sarcastically.

Heather sneers. "Clyde isn't doing his job if he hasn't gotten it through your head that there's a line between murder and self defense."

Courtney side-eyes her. "I know that."

"You didn't have your gun cocked at the grocery store today," Heather says to her hands. She clicks her tongue. "If Clyde wasn't a damn near prodigy on the draw, you'd be a pretty looking corpse right about now."

Scowling, Courtney brings her knees to her chest and gazes into the fire. "So? I'm still getting used to the new gun."

"Fuck, Bonnie. Save the damsel bullshit for the men."

Courtney glares. "Duncan saved my life today. I get that. It's not the same as—"

Heather looks up at her. "Joplin?"

"I've made my peace with Joplin," Courtney says tightly. With a wary glance at the woods, she adds, "Did Harold say something to you?"

"He didn't have to," Heather snips, "not the way you've been acting."

"What the hell do you know?" Courtney growls, pulling Harold's flask from her pocket. "How many people have _you_ killed?"

"Three," Heather answers. "And if I spent as much time moping about it as you do over coppers you _may not_ have killed, I wouldn't sleep a wink for the rest of my life."

The fire crackles in front of them. Duncan and Al are still shouting at each other a half dozen yards away. Courtney stares at Heather who averts her eyes and resumes filing her nails. Courtney catches the other woman's wedding ring glinting in the firelight.

"You don't choose who you care about," Heather says, "but you choose what you're willing to do to protect them."

Gazing down at her own hands, Courtney turns her wedding band methodically.

"They didn't deserve it, Heather," she murmurs.

"Of _course_ they didn't deserve it," Heather says, looking at Courtney like she's crazy. She angrily gestures around them. "You think any of us _deserve_ this? Starving, on the lam, camping in the woods? People are doing their jobs. And _we're_ doing what we have to."

"Yeah?" Courtney says bitingly. "That what you tell yourself to sleep at night?"

"No," Heather says flatly. "I tell myself the truth. I tell it to myself until I'm sick of hearing the sound of my own voice, and then I tell it to myself some more. Then I fuck my husband because we're both alive and in one piece and who knows if that'll be the case tomorrow. Then I get to work." She looks Courtney in the eye. "And Bonnie Jones, you need to _get to work_."

Courtney doesn't say anything as Heather tucks her nail file back into her coat and pops the collar against the wind. She doesn't rise to leave. As the brothers continue arguing, somewhere far out of their awareness, the women each stare into the fire. Courtney's eyes begin to hurt just as Al comes around the car, calling Heather over to settle something.

Heather mutters a, "Fucking, finally," and walks over as Duncan follows his brother, looking furious.

"_Bellisima_, tell your brother-in-law that this grocery store and gas station nonsense has to stop. We need to make up for our losses. We need a big score."

"Unless ya got a printing press in the trunk, there _ain't_ no big scores," Duncan argues. "Ya think the stores are bad? The banks are dry as a bone."

"I'm not talking about banks," Al says.

"No," Duncan answers. "No way in hell, Al."

"Listen to me—"

"We _ain't_ doing jewelry."

"We don't have an abundance of options," Heather says, crossing her arms.

"How many times we gotta go through this?" Duncan starts ticking off fingers. "We've never done jewelry before, we ain't got the manpower or ammunition, and we ain't got the luxury of giving this the right amount of planning."

"All reasons we should do it," Al argues. "It's out of our pattern. No one'll expect it from us."

"Fuck, _I_ don't fucking expect it from us! You trying to get us killed?"

"Better than starving on a couple dollars every six weeks!"

Harold comes back from the woods with his arms full of branches and sticks. Dumping them to the side of the fire, he squats by Courtney's side and warms himself.

"What are they fighting about now?"

"Don't care," Courtney mutters, sipping from her flask.

Harold looks between her and the Barrows. He reaches for Courtney's shoulder but stops a few inches short, then retracts his hand. Taking a deep breath, he straightens up and walks over to the others.

"Jewelry retains its value, unlike everything else in _esta maldita_ _economia_!"

"Who're we gonna fence it to?" Duncan argues. "Huh? We've got a bonafide gumshoe on our tails. Our very own Bureau hound dog! Fults and Methvin wouldn't fence our goddamn shoelaces! And don't get me started on what we still owe McClean—"

"I agree with Al," Harold says loudly, cutting through the argument. "We should do jewelry."

"Stay out of it, Ginger," Heather advises. "Leave this to the pros."

"No," Harold says firmly. "We're all a part of this. Miss Bonnie and I should have a say in what you decide."

"Part of this?" Duncan turns from Al to Harold. "The only reason ya ain't on the side of the road somewhere right now is cuz ya'd run right to the coppers! Yer a shit driver and after the way ya botched Joplin, yer lucky I don't use ya as goddamn cover in the next firefight!"

"Hey!" Courtney stands up. "Don't talk to him like that!"

"Oh for fuck's sake, not you too."

Marching over to Harold's side, Courtney says, "He's right. We've been part of this gang for months now. We should have a say."

"I am keeping you _alive_," Duncan says, jabbing a finger in her face. "Ya do what I say when I _say_ so!"

"Don't take this out on Bonnie," Al says, grabbing Duncan's arm.

Duncan whirls and smacks his brother's arm away. "Dontcha lecture me on how to talk to _my_ woman!"

"I am not _your_ woman," Courtney snaps.

"A jewelry store might be exactly what we need," Harold says, placatingly. "Can't we vote?"

"We shouldn't need a vote," Heather mutters, "if some of us had any common fucking sense."

Duncan focuses his anger on Heather. "Ya got something to say, Heath? Say it to my face!"

"I would, if you listened with anything but your ego," Heather says evenly.

"She's right, Clyde," Al says bluntly. "It's a good idea _y lo sabes_."

"_Of course_ it's a good idea to ya," Duncan mocks, "Everything she fucking says is a grand ole idea! Cuz if it ain't, ya know exactly who she comes running back to, ya horsewhipped—"

Alejandro punches him in the mouth. The _crack!_ of knuckles on teeth makes Courtney and Harold jump back. It makes Duncan rabid.

He tackles Al over the hood of the Ford, their bodies slamming loudly into the metal. They hit the ground, rolling as they try to overpower each other over the dip of the riverbank on the Ford's other side. Harold tries to hold Courtney back but she shoves off his arm and rushes to the treeline. Al and Duncan are knee deep in cold water, throwing wild punches and trying to hold each other under.

Heather strolls up beside Courtney, rolling her eyes and pulling out one of her guns.

"Men," she grunts.

She fires three shots at the water around them. The blasts of sound send woodland creatures scuttling and gain the boys' attention.

"Oh no, someone's given away our position," Heather says dryly. "Somebody better pack up the tent so we can get a move on before the law gets curious." She looks right at her husband. "Alejandro?"

Nostrils flaring and looking like a drowned dog, Al cuts one more glare at Duncan before pulling himself out of the river and trudging up the bank. He brushes past Heather, muttering foreign insults, and goes to get the tent. Heather follows with a casual remark to Harold about putting out the fire.

Courtney carefully slides down the riverbank as Duncan gets up, yanking off his sopping shoes and socks. His upper lip is bleeding freely.

"You get that out of your system?" Courtney asks.

"Oh yeah, I'm spiffy," Duncan snaps, wading to the bank. "I'm just _grand_. My brother thinks I'm a moron, my sis is in jail, my sister-in-law just shot at me, and my moll's treating me like a goddamn _child_."

"Until you apologize to her, yes, she's going to keep doing that," Courtney says, holding out a hand.

"Christ, how many times I gotta say it?" he grunts, swatting away her hand.

"You haven't said it once."

"Of course I—"

Courtney's glare doesn't flicker. Duncan thinks for a long moment.

Groaning, he sits down on the riverbank and curses to himself. His clothes make a splatting sound as he sinks into the mud and buries his face in his hands.

"Doll, I been under some mighty stress."

"It doesn't excuse you being an asshole," Courtney says, bunching up her dress and squatting beside him.

"Maybe it do."

They sit in silence. Courtney runs a hand through his hair and squeezes some of the water out with gentle fingers.

Duncan presses the back of his hand to his bleeding lip. "I haven't said it once?"

"No."

"Doll—"

"Don't say it just because I want you to."

An owl hoots somewhere in the woods and Courtney jumps, whisking a hand to her gun. She listens closely, but no other sounds follow. Before Courtney can suck in her next breath, Duncan grabs her and kisses her.

She pushes him off. He tastes like blood.

"What the hell?" he says. "Ain't this what ya want?"

"No, I want a goddamn apology," Courtney says, keeping a hand on his chest to keep him at bay.

"Ya _just_ said ya didn't want me to say it!" he shouts.

"Figure it out, Duncan," she snaps. "I am not your mother, as you kindly just reminded me."

Duncan lets out a yell of frustration that sends even more night animals scurrying. Balling his hands into fists, he takes a deep breath and carefully eyes Courtney. She raises a brow in challenge.

Slowly, he leans close again. Though she flinches away, Duncan puts a steadying hand at the back of her neck and plants a tender kiss on her temple. He dusts the word '_sorry'_ down her jaw, across her throat and breasts.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, his other hand tracing over where he'd hit her in the Oklahoma safehouse, "I'm _sorry._"

Courtney keeps perfectly still and keeps her glare harsh. Duncan pulls away and, after a long beat, groans. He falls back into the mud and tilts his head up to look at the sky with a mutter of, "Jesus fuckin' Christ."

When a minute passes without another word from him, Courtney gets up to go. Duncan doesn't stop her. She casts him one last look before returning to help clean up camp.

Duncan calls her Dollface and Darling for the rest of the night, being especially gracious as they pack up their supplies and start driving again. Courtney swears she can hear the bitterness just under his notes of affection. She hopes he can hear them in her voice too.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Aaaaand we're back! Thanks to CID-Vicious for another _AMAZING _illustration for "Chicago!"

Happy holidays, everyone! As winter comes for the Barrow gang, the cold brings an icy descent for our favorite gangsters and gun molls.


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